(Framing Text): Co-Requisite - Characteristics of Science

S4CS1: Students will be aware of the importance of curiosity, honesty, openness, and skepticism in science and will exhibit these traits in their own efforts to understand how the world works.

S4CS1.a: Keep records of investigations and observations and do not alter the records later.

Pendulum Clock

S4CS1.c: Offer reasons for findings and consider reasons suggested by others.

Effect of Environment on New Life Form
Pendulum Clock

S4CS4: Students will use ideas of system, model, change, and scale in exploring scientific and technological matters.

S4CS4.b: Use geometric figures, number sequences, graphs, diagrams, sketches, number lines, maps, and stories to represent corresponding features of objects, events, and processes in the real world. Identify ways in which the representations do not match their original counterparts.

Ocean Mapping

S4CS4.c: Identify patterns of change in things - such as steady, repetitive, or irregular change - using records, tables, or graphs of measurements where appropriate.

Graphing Skills

S4CS7: Students will be familiar with the character of scientific knowledge and how it is achieved. Students will recognize that:

S4CS7.a: Similar scientific investigations seldom produce exactly the same results, which may differ due to unexpected differences in whatever is being investigated, unrecognized differences in the methods or circumstances of the investigation, or observational uncertainties.

Growing Plants

S4CS8: Students will understand important features of the process of scientific inquiry. Students will apply the following to inquiry learning practices:

S4CS8.a: Scientific investigations may take many different forms, including observing what things are like or what is happening somewhere, collecting specimens for analysis, and doing experiments.

Effect of Environment on New Life Form
Pendulum Clock

(Framing Text): Co-Requisite - Content

S4E2: Students will model the position and motion of the earth in the solar system and will explain the role of relative position and motion in determining sequence of the phases of the moon.

S4E2.a: Explain the day/night cycle of the earth using a model.

Summer and Winter

S4E2.b: Explain the sequence of the phases of the moon.

Phases of the Moon

S4E2.c: Demonstrate the revolution of the earth around the sun and the earth’s tilt to explain the seasonal changes.

Summer and Winter

S4E2.d: Demonstrate the relative size and order from the sun of the planets in the solar system.

Solar System

S4E3: Students will differentiate between the states of water and how they relate to the water cycle and weather.

S4E3.a: Demonstrate how water changes states from solid (ice) to liquid (water) to gas (water vapor/steam) and changes from gas to liquid to solid.

Phases of Water

S4E3.d: Explain the water cycle (evaporation, condensation, and precipitation).

Water Cycle

S4E4: Students will analyze weather charts/maps and collect weather data to predict weather events and infer patterns and seasonal changes.

S4E4.b: Using a weather map, identify the fronts, temperature, and precipitation and use the information to interpret the weather conditions.

Weather Maps

S4P1: Students will investigate the nature of light using tools such as mirrors, lenses, and prisms.

S4P1.b: Investigate the reflection of light using a mirror and a light source.

Laser Reflection

S4P3: Students will demonstrate the relationship between the application of a force and the resulting change in position and motion on an object.

S4P3.a: Identify simple machines and explain their uses (lever, pulley, wedge, inclined plane, screw, wheel and axle).

Ants on a Slant (Inclined Plane)
Levers
Pulleys
Trebuchet
Wheel and Axle

S4P3.b: Using different size objects, observe how force affects speed and motion.

Force and Fan Carts

S4P3.d: Demonstrate the effect of gravitational force on the motion of an object.

Free Fall Tower

S4L1: Students will describe the roles of organisms and the flow of energy within an ecosystem.

S4L1.a: Identify the roles of producers, consumers, and decomposers in a community.

Forest Ecosystem

S4L1.b: Demonstrate the flow of energy through a food web/food chain beginning with sunlight and including producers, consumers, and decomposers.

Forest Ecosystem