Gizmos for Pennsylvania - Science: Grades 9-12 (Science, Technology & Engineering, Environmental Literacy & Sustainability (STEELS) Standards adopted 2022)

This correlation lists the recommended Gizmos for this state's curriculum standards. Click any Gizmo title below for more information.

3.1.9-12: : Life Science

1.1: : Structure and Function

3.1.9-12.A: : Students who demonstrate understanding can: Construct an explanation based on evidence for how the structure of DNA determines the structure of proteins which carry out the essential functions of life through systems of specialized cells.

3.1.9-12.B: : Students who demonstrate understanding can: Develop and use a model to illustrate the hierarchical organization of interacting systems that provide specific functions within multicellular organisms.

3.1.9-12.C: : Students who demonstrate understanding can: Plan and conduct an investigation to provide evidence that feedback mechanisms maintain homeostasis.

1.2: : Growth and Development of Organisms

1.2.1: : Inheritance and Variation of Traits

3.1.9-12.D: : Students who demonstrate understanding can: Use a model to illustrate the role of cellular division (mitosis) and differentiation in producing and maintaining complex organisms.

1.3: : Organization for Matter and Energy Flow in Organisms

1.3.1: : Matter and Energy in Organisms and Ecosystems

3.1.9-12.E: : Students who demonstrate understanding can: Use a model to illustrate how photosynthesis transforms light energy into stored chemical energy.

3.1.9-12.F: : Students who demonstrate understanding can: Construct and revise an explanation based on evidence for how carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen from sugar molecules may combine with other elements to form amino acids and/or other large carbon-based molecules.

3.1.9-12.G: : Students who demonstrate understanding can: Use a model to illustrate that cellular respiration is a chemical process whereby the bonds of food molecules and oxygen molecules are broken and the bonds in new compounds are formed resulting in a net transfer of energy.

1.4: : Interdependent Relationships in Ecosystems

1.4.1: : Matter and Energy in Organisms and Ecosystems

3.1.9-12.H: : Students who demonstrate understanding can: Use mathematical representations to support claims for the cycling of matter and flow of energy among organisms in an ecosystem.

3.1.9-12.I: : Students who demonstrate understanding can: Use mathematical and/or computational representations to support explanations of factors that affect carrying capacity of ecosystems at different scales.

1.5: : Cycles of Matter and Energy Transfer in Ecosystems

1.5.1: : Matter and Energy in Organisms and Ecosystems

3.1.9-12.K: : Students who demonstrate understanding can: Develop a model to illustrate the role of photosynthesis and cellular respiration in the cycling of carbon among the biosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere, and geosphere.

1.5.2: : Interdependent Relationships in Ecosystems

3.1.9-12.L: : Students who demonstrate understanding can: Use mathematical representations to support and revise explanations based on evidence about factors affecting biodiversity and populations in ecosystems of different scales.

1.6: : Ecosystem Dynamics, Functioning, and Resilience

1.6.1: : Interdependent Relationships in Ecosystems

3.1.9-12.M: : Students who demonstrate understanding can: Evaluate the claims, evidence, and reasoning that the complex interactions in ecosystems maintain relatively consistent numbers and types of organisms in stable conditions, but changing conditions may result in a new ecosystem.

3.1.9-12.N: : Students who demonstrate understanding can: Design, evaluate, and refine a solution for reducing the impacts of human activities on the environment and biodiversity.

1.8: : Inheritance of Traits

1.8.1: : Inheritance and Variation of Traits

3.1.9-12.P: : Students who demonstrate understanding can: Ask questions to clarify relationships about the role of DNA and chromosomes in coding the instructions for characteristic traits passed from parents to offspring.

1.9: : Variation of Traits

1.9.1: : Inheritance and Variation of Traits

3.1.9-12.Q: : Students who demonstrate understanding can: Make and defend a claim based on evidence that inheritable genetic variations may result from (1) new genetic combinations through meiosis, (2) viable errors occurring during replication, and/or (3) mutations caused by environmental factors.

1.10.1: : Natural Selection and Evolution

3.1.9-12.S: : Students who demonstrate understanding can: Communicate scientific information that common ancestry and biological evolution are supported by multiple lines of empirical evidence.

1.11: : Natural Selection

1.11.1: : Natural Selection and Evolution

3.1.9-12.T: : Students who demonstrate understanding can: Construct an explanation based on evidence that the process of evolution primarily results from four factors: (1) the potential for a species to increase in number, (2) the heritable genetic variation of individuals in a species due to mutation and sexual reproduction, (3) competition for limited resources, and (4) the proliferation of those organisms that are better able to survive and reproduce in the environment.

3.1.9-12.U: : Students who demonstrate understanding can: Apply concepts of statistics and probability to support explanations that organisms with an advantageous heritable trait tend to increase in proportion to organisms lacking this trait.

1.12: : Adaptation

1.12.1: : Interdependent Relationships in Ecosystems

3.1.9-12.V: : Students who demonstrate understanding can: Create or revise a simulation to test a solution to mitigate the adverse impacts of human activity on biodiversity.

1.12.2: : Natural Selection and Evolution

3.1.9-12.W: : Students who demonstrate understanding can: Construct an explanation based on evidence for how natural selection leads to adaptation of populations.

3.1.9-12.X: : Students who demonstrate understanding can: Evaluate the evidence supporting claims that changes in environmental conditions may result in (1)increases in the number of individuals of some species, (2) the emergence of new species over time, and (3) the extinction of other species.

3.2.9-12: : Physical Science

2.1: : Electromagnetic Radiation

3.2.9-12.A: : Students who demonstrate understanding can: Use the periodic table as a model to predict the relative properties of elements based on the patterns of electrons in the outermost energy level of atoms.

3.2.9-12.B: : Students who demonstrate understanding can: Plan and conduct an investigation to gather evidence to compare the structure of substances at the bulk scale to infer the strength of electrical forces between particles.

2.1.3: : Chemical Reactions

3.2.9-12.C: : Students who demonstrate understanding can: Construct and revise an explanation for the outcome of a simple chemical reaction based on the outermost electron states of atoms, trends in the periodic table, and knowledge of the patterns of chemical properties.

3.2.9-12.D: : Students who demonstrate understanding can: Develop a model to illustrate that the release or absorption of energy from a chemical reaction system depends upon the changes in total bond energy.

2.2: : Chemical Reactions

3.2.9-12.E: : Students who demonstrate understanding can: Apply scientific principles and evidence to provide an explanation about the effects of changing the temperature or concentration of the reacting particles on the rate at which a reaction occurs.

3.2.9-12.F: : Students who demonstrate understanding can: Refine the design of a chemical system by specifying a change in conditions that would produce increased amounts of products at equilibrium.

3.2.9-12.G: : Students who demonstrate understanding can: Use mathematical representations to support the claim that atoms, and therefore mass, are conserved during a chemical reaction.

2.3: : Nuclear Processes

2.3.1: : Structure and Properties of Matter

3.2.9-12.H: : Students who demonstrate understanding can: Develop models to illustrate the changes in the composition of the nucleus of the atom and the energy released during the processes of fission, fusion, and radioactive decay.

2.4: : Forces and Motion

2.4.1: : Forces and Interactions

3.2.9-12.I: : Students who demonstrate understanding can: Analyze data to support the claim that Newton’s second law of motion describes the mathematical relationship among the net force on a macroscopic object, its mass, and its acceleration.

3.2.9-12.J: : Students who demonstrate understanding can: Use mathematical representations to support the claim that the total momentum of a system of objects is conserved when there is no net force on the system.

3.2.9-12.K: : Students who demonstrate understanding can: Apply scientific and engineering ideas to design, evaluate and refine a device that minimizes the force on a macroscopic object during a collision.

2.5: : Types of Interactions

2.5.1: : Forces and Interactions

3.2.9-12.L: : Students who demonstrate understanding can: Use mathematical representations of Newton’s Law of Gravitation and Coulomb’s Law to describe and predict the gravitational and electrostatic forces between objects.

3.2.9-12.M: : Students who demonstrate understanding can: Plan and conduct an investigation to provide evidence that an electric current can produce a magnetic field and that a changing magnetic field can produce an electric current.

2.6: : Definitions of Energy

2.6.1: : Energy

3.2.9-12.O: : Students who demonstrate understanding can: Create a computational model to calculate the change in the energy of one component in a system when the change in energy of the other component(s) and energy flows in and out of the system are known.

3.2.9-12.P: : Students who demonstrate understanding can: Develop and use models to illustrate that energy at the macroscopic scale can be accounted for as a combination of energy associated with the motions of particles (objects) and energy associated with the relative positions of particles (objects).

3.2.9-12.Q: : Students who demonstrate understanding can: Design, build, and refine a device that works within given constraints to convert one form of energy into another form of energy.

2.7: : Conservation of Energy and Energy Transfer

2.7.1: : Energy

3.2.9-12.R: : Students who demonstrate understanding can: Plan and conduct an investigation to provide evidence that the transfer of thermal energy when two components of different temperature are combined within a closed system results in a more uniform energy distribution among the components in the system (second law of thermodynamics).

2.8: : Relationship Between Energy and Forces

2.8.1: : Energy

3.2.9-12.S: : Students who demonstrate understanding can: Develop and use a model of two objects interacting through electric or magnetic fields to illustrate the forces between objects and the changes in energy of the objects due to the interaction.

2.9: : Wave Properties

2.9.1: : Waves and Electromagnetic Radiation

3.2.9-12.T: : Students who demonstrate understanding can: Use mathematical representations to support a claim regarding relationships among the frequency, wavelength, and speed of waves traveling in various media.

3.2.9-12.V: : Students who demonstrate understanding can: Evaluate the claims, evidence, and reasoning behind the idea that electromagnetic radiation can be described either by a wave model or a particle model and that for some situations one model is more useful than the other.

2.10.1: : Waves and Electromagnetic Radiation

3.2.9-12.W: : Students who demonstrate understanding can: Evaluate the validity and reliability of claims in published materials of the effects that different frequencies of electromagnetic radiation have when absorbed by matter.

2.11: : Information Technologies and Instrumentation

2.11.1: : Waves and Electromagnetic Radiation

3.2.9-12.X: : Students who demonstrate understanding can: Communicate technical information about how some technological devices use the principles of wave behavior and wave interactions with matter to transmit and capture information and energy.

3.3.9-12: : Earth and Space Science

3.1: : The Universe and Its Stars

3.1.1: : Space Systems

3.3.9-12.A: : Students who demonstrate understanding can: Develop a model based on evidence to illustrate the life span of the sun and the role of nuclear fusion in the sun’s core to release energy in the form of radiation.

3.3.9-12.B: : Students who demonstrate understanding can: Construct an explanation of the Big Bang theory based on astronomical evidence of light spectra, the motion of distant galaxies, and the composition of matter in the universe.

3.3.9-12.C: : Students who demonstrate understanding can: Communicate scientific ideas about the way stars, over their life cycle, produce elements.

3.2: : Earth and the Solar System

3.2.1: : Space Systems

3.3.9-12.D: : Students who demonstrate understanding can: Use mathematical or computational representations to predict the motion of orbiting objects in the solar system.

3.2.2: : Weather and Climate

3.3.9-12.E: : Students who demonstrate understanding can: Use a model to describe how variations in the flow of energy into and out of Earth’s systems result in changes in climate.

3.4: : Earth Materials and Systems

3.4.1: : Earth’s Systems

3.3.9-12.H: : Students who demonstrate understanding can: Analyze geoscience data to make the claim that one change to Earth's surface can create feedback that causes changes to other Earth systems.

3.3.9-12.I: : Students who demonstrate understanding can: Develop a model based on evidence of Earth’s interior to describe the cycling of matter by thermal convection.

3.5: : Plate Tectonics and Large-Scale Interactions

3.5.1: : History of Earth

3.3.9-12.J: : Students who demonstrate understanding can: Develop a model to illustrate how Earth’s internal and surface processes operate at different spatial and temporal scales to form continental and ocean-floor features.

3.6: : The Roles of Water in Earth’s Surface Processes

3.6.1: : Earth’s Systems

3.3.9-12.K: : Students who demonstrate understanding can: Plan and conduct an investigation of the properties of water and its effects on Earth materials and surface processes.

3.7: : Weather and Climate

3.3.9-12.S: : Students who demonstrate understanding can: Analyze geoscience data and the results from global climate models to make an evidence-based forecast of the current rate of global or regional climate change and associated future impacts to Earth systems.

3.10.1: : Human Sustainability

3.3.9-12.Q: : Students who demonstrate understanding can: Create a computational simulation to illustrate the relationships among management of natural resources, the sustainability of human populations, and biodiversity.

3.5.9-12: : Technology & Engineering

5.1: : Applying, Maintaining, and Assessing Technological Products and Systems; Impacts of Technology; Influence of Society on Technological Development

5.1.1: : Applying, Maintaining, Assessing, and Evaluating Technological Products and Systems

3.5.9-12.K (ETS): : Students who demonstrate understanding can: Use a computer simulation to model the impact of proposed solutions to a complex real-world problem with numerous criteria and constraints on interactions within and between systems relevant to the problem.

5.2: : Design and Design Thinking in Technology and Engineering Education

5.2.1: : Design Thinking in Technology and Engineering Education

3.5.9-12.T (ETS): : Students who demonstrate understanding can: Analyze a major global challenge to specify qualitative and quantitative criteria and constraints for solutions that account for societal needs and wants.

3.5.9-12.Y (ETS): : Students who demonstrate understanding can: Design a solution to a complex real-world problem by breaking it down into smaller, more manageable problems that can be solved through engineering.

Correlation last revised: 7/26/2023

Pennsylvania - Science: Grades 9-12

Science, Technology & Engineering, Environmental Literacy & Sustainability (STEELS) Standards | Adopted: 2022

3.1.9-12: : Life Science

3.2.9-12: : Physical Science

3.3.9-12: : Earth and Space Science

3.5.9-12: : Technology & Engineering