Describe how design, as a creative planning process, leads to useful products and systems.

Describe how troubleshooting as a problem-solving method may identify the cause of a malfunction in a technological system.

Identify and collect information about everyday problems that can be solved by technology and generate ideas and requirements for solving a problem.

Select and safely use appropriate tools, products and systems for specific tasks.

Use data collected to analyze and interpret trends in order to identify the positive or negative effects of a technology.

Explain how processes, such as receiving, holding, storing, loading, moving, unloading, delivering, evaluating, marketing, managing and communicating are necessary for the entire system to operate efficiently.

Describe the relationships between biotic and abiotic components of an ecosystem.

• Compare and contrast different biomes and their characteristics
• Describe symbiotic and predator/prey relationships

Use appropriate tools and techniques to analyze a freshwater environment. 

•  Interpret physical, chemical, and biological data as a means of assessing the environmental quality of a freshwater environment.

CONSTANCY AND CHANGE Recognize that fossils provide us with information about living things that inhabited the Earth long ago

CONSTANCY AND CHANGE

Compare fossils to one another and to currently living organisms according to their anatomical similarities and differences.

Describe the similarities and differences of physical characteristics in diverse organisms.

Explain why the life cycles of different organisms have varied lengths.

Compare life processes (e.g. growth, digestion) at the organism level with life processes at the cellular level.

MODELS

Apply the appropriate models to show interactions among organisms in an environment.

• Understand how theories are developed.
• Identify questions that can be answered through scientific investigations and evaluate the appropriateness of questions.
• Design and conduct a scientific investigation and understand that current scientific knowledge guides scientific investigations.
• Describe relationships using inference and prediction.
• Use appropriate tools and technologies to gather, analyze, and interpret data and understand that it enhances accuracy and allows scientists to analyze and quantify results of investigations.
• Develop descriptions, explanations, and models using evidence and understand that these emphasize evidence, have logically consistent arguments, and are based on scientific principles, models, and theories.
• Analyze alternative explanations and understanding that science advances through legitimate skepticism.
• Use mathematics in all aspects of scientific inquiry.
• Understand that scientific investigations may result in new ideas for study, new methods, or procedures for an investigation or new technologies to improve data collection.

Describe how natural selection is an underlying factor in a population’s ability to adapt to changes.

Explain why the extinction of a species may occur when the environment changes.

Explain that mutations can alter a gene and are the original source of new variations in a population.

CONSTANCY AND CHANGE

Identify evidence drawn from geology, fossils, and comparative anatomy that provides the basis for the theory of evolution.

• Understand how theories are developed.
• Identify questions that can be answered through scientific investigations and evaluate the appropriateness of questions.
• Design and conduct a scientific investigation and understand that current scientific knowledge guides scientific investigations.
• Describe relationships using inference and prediction.
• Use appropriate tools and technologies to gather, analyze, and interpret data and understand that it enhances accuracy and allows scientists to analyze
• d quantify results of investigations.
•  Develop descriptions, explanations, and models using evidence and understand that these emphasize evidence, have logically consistent arguments, and are based on scientific principles, models, and theories.
• Analyze alternative explanations and understanding that science advances through legitimate skepticism.
• Use mathematics in all aspects of scientific inquiry.
• Understand that scientific investigations may result in new ideas for study, new methods, or procedures for an investigation or new technologies to improve data collection.

Define basic features of the rock cycle.

Describe the layers of the earth.

Differentiate among the mechanisms by which heat is transferred through the Earth’s system.

Explain land use in relation to soil type and topography.

Explain and give examples of how physical evidence, such as fossils and surface features of glaciation support theories that the Earth has evolved over geologic time.

Compare geologic processes over time.

Differentiate among Earth’s water systems.

Describe the motions of tides and identify their causes.

Describe basic elements of meteorology.

Explain the relationship between the energy provided by the sun and the temperature differences among water, land and atmosphere.

MODELS/SCALES

Describe the scales involved in characterizing Earth and its atmosphere.

MODELS/SCALES

Create models of Earth’s common physical features.

• Understand how theories are developed.
• Identify questions that can be answered through scientific investigations and evaluate the appropriateness of questions.
• Design and conduct a scientific investigation and understand that current scientific knowledge guides scientific investigations.
• Describe relationships using inference and prediction.
• Use appropriate tools and technologies to gather, analyze, and interpret data and understand that it enhances accuracy and allows scientists to analyze and quantify results of investigations.
• Develop descriptions, explanations, and models using evidence and understand that these emphasize evidence, have logically consistent arguments, and are based on scientific principles, models, and theories.
• Analyze alternative explanations and understanding that science advances through legitimate skepticism.
• Use mathematics in all aspects of scientific inquiry.
• Understand that scientific investigations may result in new ideas for study, new methods, or procedures for an investigation or new technologies to improve data collection.

Explain how technology is closely linked to creativity, which has resulted in innovation and invention.

Explain how different technologies involve different sets of processes.

Explain how knowledge gained from other fields of study has a direct effect on the development of technological products and systems.

Explain how the use of technology can have consequences that affect humans in many ways.

Explain how decisions to develop and use technologies may be influenced by environmental and economic concerns.

Describe how invention and innovation lead to changes in society and the creation of new needs and wants.

Explain how many inventions and innovations have evolved by using deliberate and methodical processes of tests and refinements.