Assessment Frameworks
12.7.01: Understand how scientists classify organisms. Identify common insects, flowers, birds, reptiles, and mammals using a dichotomous key.
12.7.02: Understand that all living things are composed of cells: small parts which function similarly in all living things. Understand that different tissues have different, specialized cells with specific functions. Understand the levels of organization in living organisms- cells, tissues, organs, and organ systems.
12.7.03: Identify the main differences between plant cells and animal cells, namely that plant cells have chloroplasts and cell walls (which provide rigidity to the plant, since plants have no skeletons). Identify the basic cell organelles and their functions.
Cell Structure
RNA and Protein Synthesis
12.7.05: Understand that the nucleus of cell contains the genetic information for the plant or animal to which it belongs.
12.7.06: Understand that cells divide to increase their numbers, and the process of cell division called mitosis results in two daughter cells each with identical sets of chromosomes.
12.7.10: Understand that an inherited trait can be determined by one or more genes.
Mouse Genetics (One Trait)
Mouse Genetics (Two Traits)
12.7.11: Understand that DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) is the genetic material of each living thing-like a blueprint or set of instructions for building the organism-and that it is located in the chromosomes of each cell.
12.7.12: Understand that heredity is based on the probability of inheriting a given trait for which one or both of the parents carries a gene, and that this probability can be calculated given the genetic make-up of the parents with regard to that kind of trait (e.g., blue eyes) using a Punnett Square.
Mouse Genetics (One Trait)
Mouse Genetics (Two Traits)
12.7.14: Understand the basics of plant reproduction and define and state the purposes of pollen, ovules, seeds, and fruit.
Pollination: Flower to Fruit
Seed Germination
12.7.15: Identify the common characteristics of plants and plant growth. Understand the purpose of various plant parts such as roots, stems, and leaves.
12.7.16: Understand that energy for life primarily derives from the sun; understand the process of photosynthesis.
Cell Energy Cycle
Photosynthesis Lab
Pond Ecosystem
12.7.19: Understand that flowers are the reproductive organs of flowering plants and that their function is to produce male gametes (sperm) and female gametes (eggs) and to provide a structure for fertilization.
12.7.20: Understand that some of the structures of flowers are adaptations that enable plants to reproduce sexually while they remain stationary. Understand that a plant's production of pollen is one such adaptation, since it can be transported (by wind, water, insects or other organisms) to the parts of the flowers that contain eggs. Know that this process is called pollination.
12.7.21: Identify a seed as a reproductive structure consisting of a plant embryo and its stored food. Understand that in flowering plants the seeds develop in a structure called a fruit, which houses and protect seeds and may also help to disperse them to new locations.
12.7.22: Understand natural selection or survival of the fittest, and understand that this is thought to be one of the explanations for how animals and plants change over time and that it was the explanation given by Charles Darwin.
Evolution: Mutation and Selection
Evolution: Natural and Artificial Selection
Natural Selection
Rainfall and Bird Beaks
12.7.23: Understand that fossils of complete skeletons are rare, and that many skeletons have to be reconstructed based on what scientists believed the whole body to look like. Understand that the fossil record is not complete or representative of the times in which the fossilized animals and plants lived.
Human Evolution - Skull Analysis
12.7.24: Understand how fossils provide evidence that animals and plants have changed over time, and that new species of organisms changed over time out of older ones.
Human Evolution - Skull Analysis
12.7.25: Understand that three important cycles for the survival of living things in Earth's ecosystems are the carbon dioxide-oxygen cycle, the water cycle, and the nitrogen cycle.
12.7.26: Understand that the number of organisms an ecosystem can support depends on the resources available and abiotic factors (e.g., the quantity of light and water, the range of temperatures, soil composition). Know that given adequate biotic and abiotic resources and no disease or predators, populations can increase at rapid rates. Understand that lack of resources and other factors (e.g., predation, climate) limit the growth of populations in specific niches in the ecosystem.
Food Chain
Forest Ecosystem
Prairie Ecosystem
Rabbit Population by Season
12.7.28: Distinguish the various members of a food web and identify the order of dependence among these members.
12.7.29: Understand that many plants depend upon certain animals for pollination and the spreading out of their seeds, and therefore to reproduce. Conversely, understand that animals depend on plants for food (either immediately, like herbivores; or intermediately, like carnivores) and shelter.
12.7.32: Identify and describe the major biomes and habitats and their characteristics: desert, grassland, savannah, tropical forest, coniferous forest, tundra, freshwater, and saltwater.
Forest Ecosystem
Pond Ecosystem
Prairie Ecosystem
12.7.33: Understand that matter can be changed in different ways.
12.7.33.1: Physically, a change in the size shape or state of matter (e.g., the melting of an ice cube, tearing of paper).
12.7.33.2: Chemically, where matter can change into another kind of matter (e.g., burning of wood, rusting of iron).
12.7.34: Define and distinguish the properties of matter: mass, weight, volume, density, color, odor, shape, texture, and hardness.
Density Experiment: Slice and Dice
Density Laboratory
Mineral Identification
12.7.35: Understand the phases of matter and how they depend on how the atoms and molecules of a substance move.
12.7.36: Understand the concepts of melting point, boiling point, and freezing point, and understand the concepts of evaporation, condensation, and sublimation.
12.7.40: Identify the properties common to most metals (e.g., luster, malleability, ductility, the ability to conduct electricity).
Circuit Builder
Mineral Identification
12.7.42: Define atom as the smallest part of an element that still has the properties of that element.
12.7.43: Identify the 3 subatomic building blocks and their properties. Know that the electron has a negative charge, the proton has a positive charge, and the neutron is electrically neutral.
12.7.45: Identify the number of different kinds of elements in a chemical formula.
12.7.46: Understand that during a chemical change atoms are neither created nor destroyed but are rearranged to make new substances.
Chemical Changes
Chemical Equations
12.7.47: Identify the basic properties of acids and bases. Know the relationship between acids, bases, and indicators (e.g., blue litmus paper changes to red when placed in an acid).
pH Analysis
pH Analysis: Quad Color Indicator
12.7.48: Know the laws of the conservation of matter and energy. Apply the conservation of matter as a reason why the number and kinds of atoms in a chemical change remains constant.
Air Track
Chemical Changes
Chemical Equations
Energy Conversion in a System
Energy of a Pendulum
Inclined Plane - Sliding Objects
Roller Coaster Physics
12.7.49: Understand that energy appears in many forms, such as heat, light, sound, chemical, mechanical, solar, nuclear, and electromagnetic energy. Understand the basic characteristics of each of these kinds of energy. Understand the nature of kinetic and potential energy.
Conduction and Convection
Energy of a Pendulum
Heat Absorption
Heat Transfer by Conduction
Inclined Plane - Sliding Objects
Radiation
Roller Coaster Physics
Sled Wars
12.7.50: Understand that heat moves in predictable ways, flowing from warmer objects to cooler ones, until both reach the same temperature (thermal equilibrium).
Conduction and Convection
Heat Transfer by Conduction
12.7.51: Understand that energy can be transferred by radiation, conduction, and convection.
Conduction and Convection
Heat Absorption
Heat Transfer by Conduction
Herschel Experiment
Radiation
12.7.52: Identify electrical conductors and insulators. Define and give examples of each. Understand that electricity can be converted into heat and light by forcing an electrical current through a conductor. Understand that this is what happens in a toaster and in a light bulb.
12.7.53: Understand that light travels in straight lines as long as it is traveling through one uniform medium.
12.7.54: Understand that almost all of Earth's energy comes from the sun. Understand that this energy is in the form of visible and invisible light with a range of wavelengths (electromagnetic spectrum).
12.7.55: Understand that visible light is a small band within a very broad electromagnetic spectrum.
12.7.56: Understand that when a light beam hits an object and is reflected off of it, the angle of incidence equals the angle of reflection.
12.7.57: Understand that light travels at different speeds in different materials. Understand that this is why light refracts-or changes direction-namely because it goes from one material in which it moves at one speed into another material through which it moves at a different speed.
12.7.58: Understand that the angle of refraction is determined by (1) the angle of incidence and (2) the index of refraction of the new material which the light is entering.
12.7.59: Understand that many lenses operate by refracting light beams that hit their surface in such a way that they will all meet at one point called a focal point. Understand that this is the way refracting telescopes increase the ability of an image to be magnified, and this is also how they magnify it with another lens. Likewise, know that light microscopes and magnifying glasses work in the same way.
12.7.61: Identify the basic properties of waves: frequency, wavelength, and velocity.
12.7.64: Identify and understand Newton's laws of motion. The first law of motion states that things at rest or in motion tend to stay at rest or continue in motion unless some force is applied to them. Newton's second law of motion (force = mass × acceleration) shows how force, mass, and acceleration are related. The third law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
12.7.65: Understand the concept of work. A force acting through distance is work. Recognize applications of simple machines (wedge, lever, inclined plane, pulley, screw, and wheel and axle) in common tools.
Ants on a Slant (Inclined Plane)
Levers
Pulleys
Trebuchet
Wheel and Axle
12.7.66: Understand that density is mass per volume, and that what is denser than something else at the same volume will have more mass, but at the same mass it will have less volume. Understand that less dense bodies have greater buoyant force in water.
Density Experiment: Slice and Dice
Density Laboratory
Density via Comparison
Determining Density via Water Displacement
12.7.68: Understand how to calculate average speeds, given the distance traveled and the time taken.
Distance-Time and Velocity-Time Graphs
Free-Fall Laboratory
12.7.70: Understand that lithospheric plates constantly move at rates of centimeters per year in response to movements in the mantle. Understand that major geological events, such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and mountain building, result from these plate motions. Understand that over very longs periods of time (millions of years), old mountains wear down, but new ones arise from catastrophic volcanic and earthquake activity.
Earthquakes 1 - Recording Station
Plate Tectonics
12.7.71: Understand that land forms are the result of combination of constructive and destructive forces. Understand that constructive forces include crustal deformation, volcanic eruption, and deposition of sediment, whereas destructive forces include weathering and erosion.
12.7.74: Understand that radioactive elements are useful for dating materials because the time it takes for the atoms in them to break apart is known. Know that this information can be used to determine the age of a rock within a certain number of years.
12.7.78: Understand that some changes in the solid earth can be described as the rock cycle: rocks at the earth's surface weather, forming sediments that are buried, then compacted, heated, and often recrystalized into new rock. Eventually, those new rocks may be brought to the surface by the forces that drive plate motions, and thus the rock cycle continues. Identify the three basic kinds of rock. Igneous rock is the result of cooled magma; granite, pumice, and scoria are examples. Sedimentary rock is the result of fine particles from eroded rocks being re-deposited by water or wind; sandstone and limestone are examples. Metamorphic rock is the result of rocks being changed by high temperatures and/or pressures; marble is an example.
Rock Classification
Rock Cycle
12.7.79: Understand that the theory of plate tectonics explains the formation and movement of the earth's plates. Understand that the similar contours of the continents, seafloor spreading, and the location of frequent earthquakes and volcanoes provide evidence for plate tectonics.
12.7.85: Understand that clouds, formed by the condensation of water vapor, affect weather and climate. Understand that clouds cause precipitation and lightning and that they insulate heat and moisture in the air.
12.7.86: Understand how jet streams affect weather. Identify weather fronts and understand how they are formed. Understand how to read and interpret weather maps.
12.7.87: Understand patterns of atmospheric movement and how they influence weather. Understand that oceans have a major affect on climate because water in the oceans holds and distributes a large amount of heat.
Coastal Winds and Clouds
Hurricane Motion
Weather Maps
12.7.88: Understand the stages in the water cycle on Earth: evaporation, condensation, and precipitation.
12.7.90: Know that about three fourths of the earth is covered with water. Understand that most of the earth's water is salt water (oceans), and only about 3 percent of the earth's water is freshwater. Know that freshwater is found mainly in icecaps, glaciers, lakes, groundwater, rivers, and the atmosphere.
12.7.91: Understand that objects in the solar system are for the most part in regular and predictable motion. Know that those motions explain such phenomena as the day, the year, the phases of the moon, and eclipses.
2D Eclipse
3D Eclipse
Comparing Earth and Venus
Phases of the Moon
Seasons: Earth, Moon, and Sun
12.7.92: Understand that gravity is the force that keeps planets in orbit around the sun and governs the rest of the motion in the solar system. Know that changes in gravitational forces explain the phenomenon of the tides. Know that what an object weighs on Earth is different than what it weighs on the moon or other planets in our solar system. This is due to gravity.
12.7.93: Identify the differences among the planets in our solar system: the four closest planets to the Sun are called the inner planets. The inner planets are small and have rocky surfaces. The five farthest planets from the Sun are called the outer planets. All outer planets except Pluto are much larger than Earth, are made of gases, and have no solid surfaces.
12.7.98: Understand that the cause of the earth's seasons and the change in the amount of daylight throughout the year is the tilt of its axis of rotation with respect to the plane of its orbit. Given a diagram of the earth depicting
12.7.98.2: the orientation of its axis of rotation and
Seasons: Earth, Moon, and Sun
Seasons: Why do we have them?
Summer and Winter
12.7.98.3: some circle of latitude, identify the following:
12.7.98.3.a: the season of the year (if the circle of latitude is other than the equator), and
Seasons in 3D
Summer and Winter
12.7.98.3.b: whether there is more daylight or more dark hours at that time of year. Understand why the seasons and daylight hours in opposite hemispheres are opposite to each other.
Seasons in 3D
Seasons: Earth, Moon, and Sun
Summer and Winter
12.7.100: Identify the relative positions of the earth, moon, and sun when the moon appears full, new, half, and when a lunar or solar eclipse occurs. Given a diagram of the sun and the earth in some definite position with its axis of rotation drawn (and with the poles labeled), identify the earth in the positions of summer solstice, winter solstice, spring equinox, and fall equinox (for the northern hemisphere).
2D Eclipse
3D Eclipse
Moonrise, Moonset, and Phases
Phases of the Moon
Seasons Around the World
Seasons in 3D
Tides
Correlation last revised: 5/10/2018