National Science Content Standards: Physical Science, Life Science, Earth and Space Science

 Overview: According to our National Science Standards, students should experience science in a manner that engages them in the active construction of ideas and explanations. As students focus on the process of doing science explorations, they develop the ability to ask questions, investigate, construct reasonable explanations, and better understand the world around them.

Physical Science

Experiences in physical science should provide K-4 students with multiple opportunities to increase their understanding of the characteristics of the objects and and materials that they encounter daily. As children observe, compare, describe, and sort such things, they begin to form explanations that help them to understand the world.  The focus here should be on concrete, hands-on activities that challenge students to carefully observe, describe, and measure the properties of materials and the changes in materials  that can occur over time.

1. Properties of Objects and Materials:

• Objects have many observable properties, including size, weight, shape, color and the ability to react with other substances. These properties can be measured using tools such as rulers, balances, and thermometers.
• Objects are made of one or more materials, such as paper, wood, and metal. Objects can be described by the properties of the materials from which they are made, and those properties can be used to separate or sort a group of objects or materials.
• Materials can exist in different states—solid, liquid, and gas. Some common materials, such as water, can be changed from one state to another by heating or cooling.

2. Position and Motion of Objects:

• The position of an object can be described by locating it relative to another object or the background.

• An object’s motion can be described by tracing and measuring its position over time.

• The position of an object can be changed by pushing or pulling. The size of the change is related to the strength of the push or pull.

• Sound is produced by vibrating objects. The pitch of a sound can be varied by changing the rate of vibration.

3. Light, Heat, Electricity, and Magnetism

• Light travels in a straight line until it reaches an object. Light can be reflected by a mirror, refracted b y a lens, or absorbed by the object.

• Heat can be produced in many ways such as burning, rubbing, or mixing once substance with another. Heat can move from one object to another by conduction.
• Electricity in circuits can produce heat, sound, and magnetic effects. Electrical circuits require a complete loop through which an electrical current can pass.
• Magnets attract and repel each other and certain kinds of other materials.

Life Science

Students build their understanding of biological concepts through direct experience with living things.  As students explore the incredible diversity of living things, their sense of wonder and natural curiosity can be used to build their understanding of the characteristics of living things, the life cycles of organisms, and the complex relationships that are found in nature.  The focus here should be the study of real organisms where students observe and interact with their natural world. 

1. The Characteristics of Organisms:

• Organisms have basic needs. For example, animals need air, water, and food; plants require air, water, nutrients, and light. Organisms can survive only in environments in which their needs can be met. The world has many different environments, and distinct environments support the life of different types of organisms.
• Each plant or animal has different structures that serve different functions in growth, survival, and reproduction. For example, humans have distinct body structures for walking, holding, seeing, and talking.
• The behavior of individual organisms in influenced by internal cues (such as hunger) and by external cues (such as a change in the environment). Humans and other organisms have senses that help them detect internal and external cues.

  2. Life Cycles of Organisms:

• Plants and animals have life cycles that include being born, developing into adults, reproducing, and eventually dying. The details of this life cycle are different for different organisms.
• Plants and animals closely resemble their parents.
• Many characteristics of organisms are inherited from the parents of that organism, but other characteristics result from an individual’s interactions with the environment. Inherited characteristics include the color of flowers and the number of limbs of an animal. Other features, such as the ability to ride a bicycle, are learned through interactions with the environment and cannot be passed on the next generation.

3. Organisms and Their Environments:

• All animals depend on plants. Some animals eat plants for food. Other animals eat animals that eat the plants.
• An organism’s patterns of behavior are related to the nature of that organism’s environment, including the kind and number of organisms present, the  availability of food and resources, and the physical characteristics of the environment. When the environment changes, some plants and animals survive and reproduce, and others die or move to new locations.
• All organisms cause changes in the environment where they live. Some of these changes are detrimental to the organism or other organisms, whereas others are beneficial.
• Humans depend on their natural and constructed environments. Humans change environments in ways that can be either beneficial or detrimental for themselves and other organisms.

Earth and Space Science

Students should be encouraged to observe and investigate the natural materials that are found in their environment.  As they make observations of things such as rocks, soils, and water, they should note properties, distinguish one from another and develop explanations to explain differences. They should also be guided to observe changes including cyclical changes, such as day and night, predictable changes, such as growth and decay, and gradual changes, such as erosion and the change of seasons.  Here the focus should be on observations, explorations, descriptions and pattern finding.

1.Properties of Earth Materials:

• Earth materials are solid rocks and soils, water, and the gases of the atmosphere. The varied materials have different physical and chemical properties, which make them useful in different ways, for example, as building materials, as sources of fuel, or for growing the plants we use as food. Earth materials provide many of the resources that humans use.
• Soils have properties of color and texture, capacity to retain water, and ability to support the growth of many kinds of plants, including those in our food supply.
• Fossils provide evidence about plants and animals that have lived long ago and the nature of the environment at that time.

2. Objects in the Sky

• The sun, moon, stars, clouds, birds, and airplanes all have properties, locations, and movements that can be observed and described.

• The sun  provides the light and heat necessary to maintain the temperature of the earth.

  3. Changes in the Earth and Sky

• The surface of the earth changes. Some changes are due to slow processes, such as erosion and weathering, and some changes are due to rapid processes, such as landslides, volcanic eruptions, and earthquakes.
• Weather changes from day to day over the seasons. Weather can be described by measurable quantities, such as temperature, wind direction and speed, and precipitation.
• Objects in the sky have patterns of movement. The sun, for example, appears to move across the sky in the same way every day, but is path changes slowly over the seasons. The moon moves across the sky on a daily basis much like the sun. The observable shape of the moon changes from day to day in a cycle that lasts about a month.