HS-PS1: Matter and Its Interactions

HS-PS1-1: 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.

Electron Configuration
Element Builder
Ionic Bonds
Periodic Trends
Electrons and Chemical Reactions

HS-PS1-2: 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.

Covalent Bonds
Ionic Bonds
Periodic Trends
Electrons and Chemical Reactions

HS-PS1-3: 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.

Melting Points
Polarity and Intermolecular Forces
Sticky Molecules

HS-PS1-4: 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.

Feel the Heat
Reaction Energy

HS-PS1-5: 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.

Collision Theory

HS-PS1-6: 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.

Equilibrium and Concentration
Equilibrium and Pressure
Ocean Carbon Equilibrium

HS-PS1-7: Students who demonstrate understanding can: Use mathematical representations to support the claim that atoms, and therefore mass, are conserved during a chemical reaction.

Balancing Chemical Equations
Chemical Changes
Chemical Equations
Moles
Stoichiometry
Water Crisis

HS-PS1-8: 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.

Average Atomic Mass
Half-life
Isotopes
Nuclear Decay
Nuclear Reactions

HS-PS2: Motion and Stability: Forces and Interactions

HS-PS2-1: 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.

Atwood Machine
Crumple Zones
Fan Cart Physics
Free-Fall Laboratory

HS-PS2-2: 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.

2D Collisions
Air Track

HS-PS2-3: 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.

Crumple Zones

HS-PS2-4: 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.

Coulomb Force (Static)
Gravitational Force
Pith Ball Lab

HS-PS2-5: 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.

Electromagnetic Induction
Magnetic Induction

HS-PS2-6: Students who demonstrate understanding can: Communicate scientific and technical information about why the molecular-level structure is important in the functioning of designed materials.

Feel the Heat

HS-PS3: Energy

HS-PS3-1: 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.

Energy Conversion in a System
Energy of a Pendulum
Inclined Plane - Rolling Objects
Inclined Plane - Simple Machine
Inclined Plane - Sliding Objects

HS-PS3-2: 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 position of particles (objects).

Boyle's Law and Charles's Law
Energy Conversion in a System
Energy of a Pendulum
Inclined Plane - Sliding Objects
Potential Energy on Shelves

HS-PS3-3: 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.

Feel the Heat
Trebuchet

HS-PS3-4: 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).

Calorimetry Lab
Energy Conversion in a System
Heat Transfer by Conduction

HS-PS3-5: 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.

Charge Launcher
Electromagnetic Induction
Magnetic Induction
Magnetism
Pith Ball Lab
Polarity and Intermolecular Forces

HS-PS4: Waves and Their Applications in Technologies for Information Transfer

HS-PS4-1: 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.

Doppler Shift
Earthquakes 1 - Recording Station
Longitudinal Waves
Refraction
Ripple Tank
Waves

HS-PS4-3: 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.

Basic Prism
Photoelectric Effect

HS-PS4-4: 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.

Herschel Experiment
Herschel Experiment - Metric
Photoelectric Effect
Radiation

HS-PS4-5: 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.

Phased Array

HS-LS1: From Molecules to Organisms: Structures and Processes

HS-LS1-1: 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.

Building DNA
Genetic Engineering
RNA and Protein Synthesis
Enzymes
Protein Synthesis

HS-LS1-2: 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.

Cell Types
Circulatory System
Digestive System
Frog Dissection
Muscles and Bones
Senses

HS-LS1-3: Students who demonstrate understanding can: Plan and conduct an investigation to provide evidence that feedback mechanisms maintain homeostasis.

Human Homeostasis
Osmosis
Paramecium Homeostasis
Diffusion
Homeostasis
Osmosis

HS-LS1-4: Students who demonstrate understanding can: Use a model to illustrate the role of cellular division (mitosis) and differentiation in producing and maintaining complex organisms.

Cell Division
Embryo Development
Meiosis
Meowsis

HS-LS1-5: Students who demonstrate understanding can: Use a model to illustrate how photosynthesis transforms light energy into stored chemical energy.

Cell Energy Cycle
Photosynthesis Lab
Photosynthesis

HS-LS1-6: 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.

Dehydration Synthesis

HS-LS1-7: 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.

Cell Energy Cycle
Cell Respiration

HS-LS2: Ecosystems: Interactions, Energy, and Dynamics

HS-LS2-1: 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.

Food Chain
Forest Ecosystem
Prairie Ecosystem
Rabbit Population by Season
Rainfall and Bird Beaks
Rainfall and Bird Beaks - Metric
Ecosystems

HS-LS2-2: 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.

Coral Reefs 1 - Abiotic Factors
Coral Reefs 2 - Biotic Factors
Food Chain
Forest Ecosystem
Prairie Ecosystem
Rabbit Population by Season
Rainfall and Bird Beaks
Rainfall and Bird Beaks - Metric
Ecosystems

HS-LS2-3: Students who demonstrate understanding can: Construct and revise an explanation based on evidence for the cycling of matter and flow of energy in aerobic and anaerobic conditions.

Carbon Cycle
Cell Energy Cycle
Plants and Snails
Photosynthesis

HS-LS2-4: 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.

Food Chain
Forest Ecosystem
Ecosystems

HS-LS2-5: 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.

Carbon Cycle
Cell Energy Cycle
Plants and Snails
Photosynthesis

HS-LS2-6: 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.

Coral Reefs 1 - Abiotic Factors
Coral Reefs 2 - Biotic Factors
Food Chain
Pond Ecosystem
Prairie Ecosystem
Ecosystems

HS-LS2-7: Students who demonstrate understanding can: Design, evaluate, and refine a solution for reducing the impacts of human activities on the environment and biodiversity.

GMOs and the Environment
Nitrogen Cycle
Ocean Carbon Equilibrium
Photosynthesis

HS-LS3: Heredity: Inheritance and Variation of Traits

HS-LS3-1: 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.

Building DNA
DNA Analysis
DNA Profiling
Evolution: Mutation and Selection
Genetic Engineering
Human Karyotyping
Meiosis
RNA and Protein Synthesis
Meowsis
Protein Synthesis

HS-LS3-2: 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.

Building DNA
Evolution: Mutation and Selection
Meiosis
Microevolution
Evolution
Meowsis

HS-LS3-3: Students who demonstrate understanding can: Apply concepts of statistics and probability to explain the variation and distribution of expressed traits in a population.

Chicken Genetics
Fast Plants^® 1 - Growth and Genetics
Fast Plants^® 2 - Mystery Parent
Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium
Microevolution
Mouse Genetics (One Trait)
Mouse Genetics (Two Traits)

HS-LS4: Biological Evolution: Unity and Diversity

HS-LS4-1: Students who demonstrate understanding can: Communicate scientific information that common ancestry and biological evolution are supported by multiple lines of empirical evidence.

Cladograms
Embryo Development
Human Evolution - Skull Analysis
RNA and Protein Synthesis

HS-LS4-2: 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.

Evolution: Mutation and Selection
Natural Selection
Rainfall and Bird Beaks
Rainfall and Bird Beaks - Metric
Evolution

HS-LS4-3: 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.

Evolution: Mutation and Selection
Microevolution
Natural Selection
Rainfall and Bird Beaks
Rainfall and Bird Beaks - Metric
Evolution

HS-LS4-4: Students who demonstrate understanding can: Construct an explanation based on evidence for how natural selection leads to adaptation of populations.

Evolution: Mutation and Selection
Microevolution
Natural Selection
Rainfall and Bird Beaks
Rainfall and Bird Beaks - Metric
Evolution

HS-LS4-5: 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.

Natural Selection
Rainfall and Bird Beaks
Rainfall and Bird Beaks - Metric
Evolution

HS-LS4-6: Students who demonstrate understanding can: Create or revise a simulation to test a solution to mitigate adverse impacts of human activity on biodiversity.

GMOs and the Environment

HS-ESS1: Earth’s Place in the Universe

HS-ESS1-1: 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 that eventually reaches Earth in the form of radiation.

H-R Diagram
Nuclear Reactions

HS-ESS1-2: Students who demonstrate understanding can: Construct an explanation of the Big Bang theory based on astronomical evidence of light spectra, motion of distant galaxies, and composition of matter in the universe.

Big Bang Theory - Hubble's Law

HS-ESS1-3: Students who demonstrate understanding can: Communicate scientific ideas about the way stars, over their life cycle, produce elements.

Nuclear Reactions

HS-ESS1-4: Students who demonstrate understanding can: Use mathematical or computational representations to predict the motion of orbiting objects in the solar system.

Orbital Motion - Kepler's Laws
Solar System Explorer

HS-ESS1-5: Students who demonstrate understanding can: Evaluate evidence of the past and current movements of continental and oceanic crust and the theory of plate tectonics to explain the ages of crustal rocks.

Plate Tectonics

HS-ESS2: Earth’s Systems

HS-ESS2-1: 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.

Erosion Rates
Plate Tectonics
River Erosion
Weathering

HS-ESS2-2: Students who demonstrate understanding can: Analyze geoscience data to make the claim that one change to Earth’s surface can create feedbacks that cause changes to other Earth systems.

Carbon Cycle

HS-ESS2-3: Students who demonstrate understanding can: Develop a model based on evidence of Earth’s interior to describe the cycling of matter by thermal convection.

Convection Cells
Plate Tectonics

HS-ESS2-4: 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.

Greenhouse Effect
Greenhouse Effect - Metric

HS-ESS2-5: Students who demonstrate understanding can: Plan and conduct an investigation of the properties of water and its effects on Earth materials and surface processes.

Erosion Rates
River Erosion
Rock Cycle
Water Cycle
Weathering

HS-ESS2-6: Students who demonstrate understanding can: Develop a quantitative model to describe the cycling of carbon among the hydrosphere, atmosphere, geosphere, and biosphere.

Carbon Cycle

HS-ESS3: Earth and Human Activity

HS-ESS3-3: 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.

Coral Reefs 1 - Abiotic Factors
Coral Reefs 2 - Biotic Factors
Water Pollution
Nitrogen Cycle

HS-ESS3-4: Students who demonstrate understanding can: Evaluate or refine a technological solution that reduces impacts of human activities on climate change and other natural systems.

GMOs and the Environment
Water Pollution
Nitrogen Cycle

HS-ESS3-5: 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.

Greenhouse Effect
Greenhouse Effect - Metric

HS-ESS3-6: Students who demonstrate understanding can: Use a computational representation to illustrate the relationships among Earth systems and how those relationships are being modified due to human activity (i.e., climate change).

Carbon Cycle
Coral Reefs 1 - Abiotic Factors
Ocean Carbon Equilibrium

HS-ETS1: Engineering Design

HS-ETS1-1: 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.

Crumple Zones
GMOs and the Environment
Genetic Engineering

HS-ETS1-2: 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.

Crumple Zones
DNA Profiling
GMOs and the Environment
Genetic Engineering

HS-ETS1-3: Students who demonstrate understanding can: Evaluate a solution to a complex real-world problem based on prioritized criteria and trade-offs that account for a range of constraints, including cost, safety, reliability, and aesthetics, as well as possible social, cultural, and environmental impacts.

GMOs and the Environment
Genetic Engineering

HS-ETS1-4: 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.

GMOs and the Environment