The curriculum will be based on the Science Netlinks website from the American Academy for Advancement of Science, see http://sciencenetlinks.com/about.php
Also the Teacher Domain website http://www.teachersdomain.org/collection/k12/sci/
will be used as an additional resource for selecting digital media or lesson plans
At the heart of Science NetLinks are standards-based lesson plans that incorporate reviewed Internet resources, and can be selected according to specific benchmarks and grade ranges. Each lesson is tied to at least one learning goal and uses research-based instructional strategies that support student learning.
The objectives selected below are based on input specifying fun interactive in-school classes in the following areas: Chemistry, Engineering, Physics and Thermodynamics. Optional internet activities will be provided on a website to enhance each in-school class.
The Structure of Matter
|
By the end of 8th grade, students should know that:
1. All matter is made up of atoms, which are far too small to see directly through a microscope.
2. Equal volumes of different substances usually have different weights.
3. Atoms and molecules are perpetually in motion.
4. The temperature and acidity of a solution influence reaction rates.
5. Scientific ideas about elements were borrowed from some Greek philosophers of 2,000 years earlier, who believed that everything was made from four basic substances: air, earth, fire, and water.
6. There are groups of elements that have similar properties, including highly reactive metals, less-reactive metals, highly reactive nonmetals (such as chlorine, fluorine, and oxygen), and some almost completely nonreactive gases (such as helium and neon).
7. No matter how substances within a closed system interact with one another, or how they combine or break apart, the total weight of the system remains the same.
|
E. Energy Transformations
|
By the end of 8th grade, students should know that:
1. Energy cannot be created or destroyed, but only changed from one form into another.
2. Most of what goes on in the universe from exploding stars and biological growth to the operation of machines and the motion of people involves some form of energy being transformed into another.
3. Heat can be transferred through materials by the collisions of atoms or across space by radiation.
4. Energy appears in different forms.
|
F. Motion
|
By the end of 8th grade, students should know that:
1. Light from the sun is made up of a mixture of many different colors of light, even though to the eye the light looks almost white.
2. Something can be "seen" when light waves emitted or reflected by it enter the eye just as something can be "heard" when sound waves from it enter the ear.
3. An unbalanced force acting on an object changes its speed or direction of motion, or both.
4. Vibrations in materials set up wavelike disturbances that spread away from the source.
5. Human eyes respond to only a narrow range of wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation visible light.
|
G. Forces of Nature
|
By the end of 8th grade, students should know that:
1. Every object exerts gravitational force on every other object.
2. The sun's gravitational pull holds the earth and other planets in their orbits, just as the planets' gravitational pull keeps their moons in orbit around them.
3. Electric currents and magnets can exert a force on each other.
|
Technology and Science
|
By the end of 8th grade, students should know that:
1. In earlier times, the accumulated information and techniques of each generation of workers were taught on the job directly to the next generation of workers.
2. Technology is essential to science for such purposes as access to outer space and other remote locations, sample collection and treatment, measurement, data collection and storage, computation, and communication of information.
3. Engineers, architects, and others who engage in design and technology use scientific knowledge to solve practical problems.
|
B. Design and Systems
|
By the end of 8th grade, students should know that:
1. Design usually requires taking constraints into account.
2. All technologies have effects other than those intended by the design, some of which may have been predictable and some not.
3. Almost all control systems have inputs, outputs, and feedback.
4. Systems fail because they have faulty or poorly matched parts, are used in ways that exceed what was intended by the design, or were poorly designed to begin with.
|
Materials and Manufacturing
|
By the end of 8th grade, students should know that:
1. The choice of materials for a job depends on their properties and on how they interact with other materials.
2. Manufacturing usually involves a series of steps, such as designing a product, obtaining and preparing raw materials, processing the materials mechanically or chemically, and assembling, testing, inspecting, and packaging.
3. Modern technology reduces manufacturing costs, produces more uniform products, and creates new synthetic materials that can help reduce the depletion of some natural resources.
4. Automation, including the use of robots, has changed the nature of work in most fields, including manufacturing.
|
C. Energy Sources and Use
|
By the end of 8th grade, students should know that:
1. Energy can change from one form to another, although in the process some energy is always converted to heat.
2. Different ways of obtaining, transforming, and distributing energy have different environmental consequences.
3. In many instances, manufacturing and other technological activities are performed at a site close to an energy source.
4. Electrical energy can be produced from a variety of energy sources and can be transformed into almost any other form of energy.
5. Energy from the sun (and the wind and water energy derived from it) is available indefinitely.
6. Different parts of the world have different amounts and kinds of energy resources to use and use them for different purposes.
|
Systems
|
By the end of 8th grade, students should know that:
1. A system can include processes as well as things.
2. Thinking about things as systems means looking for how every part relates to others.
3. Any system is usually connected to other systems, both internally and externally.
|
B. Models
|
By the end of 8th grade, students should know that:
1. Models are often used to think about processes that happen too slowly, too quickly, or on too small a scale to observe directly, or that are too vast to be changed deliberately, or that are potentially dangerous.
2. Mathematical models can be displayed on a computer and then modified to see what happens.
3. Different models can be used to represent the same thing.
|
C. Constancy and Change
|
By the end of 8th grade, students should know that:
1. Physical and biological systems tend to change until they become stable and then remain that way unless their surroundings change.
2. A system may stay the same because nothing is happening or because things are happening but exactly counterbalance one another.
3. Many systems contain feedback mechanisms that serve to keep changes within specified limits.
4. Symbolic equations can be used to summarize how the quantity of something changes over time or in response to other changes.
5. Symmetry (or the lack of it) may determine properties of many objects, from molecules and crystals to organisms and designed structures.
6. Cycles, such as the seasons or body temperature, can be described by their cycle length or frequency, what their highest and lowest values are, and when these values occur.
|
D. Scale
|
By the end of 8th grade, students should know that:
1. Properties of systems that depend on volume, such as capacity and weight, change out of proportion to properties that depend on area, such as strength or surface processes.
2. As the complexity of any system increases, gaining an understanding of it depends increasingly on summaries, such as averages and ranges, and on descriptions of typical examples of that system.
|
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
