STANDARD COURSE OF STUDY
STANDARD COURSE OF STUDYGRADE SIX
It is important that the nature of the adolescent be at the core of all curricula. Middle school students are undergoing extensive psychological, physiological, and social changes, which make them curious, energetic, and egocentric. Middle school science provides opportunities to channel the interests and concerns of adolescents, provided it maximizes their exposure to high interest topics. Middle school learners need to see a direct relationship between science education and daily life. Investigations designed to help students learn about themselves and their world motivate them.
Designing technological solutions and pondering benefits and risks should be an integral part of the middle school science experience. As students take the initiative to learn science and technology, they will learn about themselves, their community and potential career paths. The confidence to pursue such personal goals can be instilled through successful science experience.
Many of science's universal laws are very old ideas that still apply today. In addition, using history to trace the technology evolution that led us from an agricultural to an industrial to an information and communication-based society exemplifies the nature of science. Public acceptance of modified or new ideas exemplifies the struggle of scientists who attempt to advance scientific knowledge or make breakthroughs. The learner should appreciate the efforts of past scientists that have given rise to modern science and technology.
A solid conceptual base of scientific principles, as well as knowledge of science safety, is necessary for inquiry. Students should be given a supportive learning environment based on how scientists and engineers work. Adherence to all science safety criteria and guidelines for classroom, field, and laboratory experiences is imperative. Contact the Science Section at DPI for information and professional development opportunities regarding North Carolina specific Science Safety laws, codes, and standards. The Science Section is spearheading a statewide initiative entitled NC-The Total Science Safety System.
- Structure questions that can be answered through scientific investigations.
- Clarify ideas that guide and influence the inquiry.
- Design and conduct scientific investigations to test ideas.
- Apply safe and appropriate abilities to manipulate materials, equipment, and technologies.
- Control and manipulate variables.
- Use appropriate resources and tools to gather, analyze, interpret, and communicate data.
- Use mathematics to gather, organize, and present data.
Students should:
- Make inferences from data .
- Use evidence to offer descriptions, predictions and models.
- Think critically and logically to bridge the relationships between evidence and explanations.
- Recognize and evaluate alternative explanations.
- Review experimental procedures.
- Communicate scientific procedures, results, and explanations.
- Formulate questions leading to further investigations.
A single problem often has both scientific and technological aspects. For example, investigating the salinity of the water in North Carolina's sounds is the pursuit of science, while creating a way to make this salt water drinkable is the pursuit of technology. In other words, while science tries to understand the natural world, technology tries to solve practical problems. Technology expands our capacity to understand the world and to control the natural and human-made environment. Technology asks questions like "How does this work?" and "How can it be improved?"
The word "technology" has many definitions. It may, for example, mean a particular way of doing things, and or it may denote a specific object. Stephen Kiln, Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University has four definitions of technology (Kiln, 1985):
- artifact or hardware. (e.g., an aspirin, chair, computer, or video tape)
- methodology or technique. (e.g., painting, using a microscope or calculator)
- system of production. (e.g., the automobile assembly line, a process for manufacturing a product or an entire industry)
- social-technical system. (an airplane, for example, suggests a plethora of interrelated devices, human resources, and artifacts such as airports, passengers and pilots, fuel, regulations and ticketing).
Technology provides tools for understanding natural phenomena and often sparks scientific advances. It has always played a role in the growth of scientific knowledge. The techniques for shaping, producing or manufacturing tools, for example, are seen as the primary evidence of the beginning of human culture. Applying scientific knowledge of materials and processes to the benefit of people has been a determining factor in shaping our culture.
While understanding the connection of science and technology is critical, the ability to distinguish between the work of engineers and scientists also should be explored. Scientists propose explanations for questions about the natural world, and engineers propose solutions relating to human problems, needs, and aspirations. Technology design skills are parallel to inquiry skills in science. It is critical that students understand that technology enables us to design adaptations to the natural world but not without both positive and negative consequences. The limits on science's ability to answer all questions, and on technology's ability to design solutions for all adaptive problems, also must be stressed. Design requires that technological solutions adhere to the universal laws of nature. Constraints such as gravity or the properties of the materials to be used are critical to the success of a technological solution. Other constraints, including cost, time, politics, society, ethics, and aesthetics, also define parameters and limit choices. Students should analyze benefits and costs of technological solutions. Fundamental abilities of technological design include the ability to:
- Identify problems appropriate for technological design.
- Develop criteria for evaluating the product or solution.
- Identify constraints that must be taken into consideration
- Design a product or solution.
- Apply safe and appropriate abilities to manipulate materials, equipment, and technologies.
- Implement a proposed design.
- Evaluate completed design or product.
- Analyze the risks and benefits of the solution.
- Communicate the process of technological design.
- Review the process of technological design.
- analyze the role of humans in the natural world using issues that concern the lithosphere.
- interpret the interconnectedness of all organisms in an ecosystem and the effect of disturbing parts of a system.
- evaluate the benefits and knowledge gained from space exploration.
- investigate the importance of soil quality.
Strands: The Nature of Science, Science as Inquiry, Science and Technology, Science in Personal and Social Perspectives Strands provide the context for content goals.
| Competency Goal 1: The learner will design and conduct investigations to demonstrate an understanding of scientific inquiry. |
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| Objectives 1.01 Identify and create questions and hypotheses that can be answered through scientific investigations. 1.02 Develop appropriate experimental procedures for:
1.03 Apply safety procedures in the laboratory and in field studies:
1.04 Analyze variables in scientific investigations:
1.05 Analyze evidence to:
1.06 Use mathematics to gather, organize, and present quantitative data resulting from scientific investigations:
1.07 Prepare models and/or computer simulations to:
1.08 Use oral and written language to:
1.09 Use technologies and information systems to:
1.10 Analyze and evaluate information from a scientifically literate viewpoint by reading, hearing, and/or viewing:
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| Competency Goal 2: The learner will demonstrate an understanding of technological design. |
| Objectives 2.01 Explore evidence that "technology" has many definitions.
2.02 Use information systems to:
2.03 Evaluate technological designs for:
2.04 Apply tenets of technological design to make informed consumer decisions about:
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| Competency Goal 3: The learner will build an understanding of the geological cycles, forces, processes, and agents which shape the lithosphere. |
| Objectives 3.01 Evaluate the forces that shape the lithosphere including:
3.02 Examine earthquake and volcano patterns. 3.03 Explain the model for the interior of the earth. 3.04 Describe the processes which form and the uses of earth materials.
3.05 Analyze soil properties that can be observed and measured to predict soil quality including:
3.06 Evaluate ways in which human activities have affected Earth's pedosphere and the measures taken to control the impact:
3.07 Assess the use of technology and information systems in monitoring lithospheric phenomenon. 3.08 Conclude that the good health of environments and organisms requires:
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| Competency Goal 4: The learner will investigate the cycling of matter. |
| Objectives 4.01 Describe the flow of energy and matter in natural systems:
4.02 Evaluate the significant role of decomposers. 4.03 Examine evidence that green plants make food.
4.04 Evaluate the significance of photosynthesis to other organisms:
4.05 Evaluate designed systems for ability to enable growth of certain plants and animals. |
| Competency Goal 5: The learner will build understanding of the Solar System. |
| Objectives 5.01 Analyze the components and cycles of the solar system including:
5.02 Compare and contrast the Earth to other planets in terms of:
5.03 Relate the influence of the sun and the moon's orbit to the gravitational effects produced on Earth.
5.04 Describe space explorations and the understandings gained from them including:
5.05 Describe the setting of the solar system in the universe including:
5.06 Analyze the spin-off benefits generated by space exploration technology including:
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| Competency Goal 6: The learner will conduct investigations and examine models and devices to build an understanding of the characteristics of energy transfer and/or transformation. |
| Objectives 6.01 Determine how convection and radiation transfer energy. 6.02 Analyze heat flow through materials or across space from warm objects to cooler objects until both objects are at equilibrium. 6.03 Analyze sound as an example that vibrating materials generate waves that transfer energy.
6.04 Evaluate data for qualitative and quantitative relationships associated with energy transfer and/or transformation. 6.05 Analyze the physical interactions of light and matter:
6.06 Analyze response to heat to determine the suitability of materials for use in technological design:
6.07 Analyze the Law of Conservation of Energy:
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| Competency Goal 7: The learner will conduct investigations and use technologies and information systems to build an understanding of population dynamics. |
| Objectives 7.01 Describe ways in which organisms interact with each other and with non-living parts of the environment:
7.02 Investigate factors that determine the growth and survival of organisms including:
7.03 Explain how changes in habitat may affect organisms. 7.04 Evaluate data related to human population growth, along with problems and solutions:
7.05 Examine evidence that overpopulation by any species impacts the environment. 7.06 Investigate processes which, operating over long periods of time, have resulted in the diversity of plant and animal life present today:
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