The Practice of Science

Define a problem from the seventh grade curriculum, use appropriate reference materials to support scientific understanding, plan and carry out scientific investigation of various types, such as systematic observations or experiments, identify variables, collect and organize data, interpret data in charts, tables, and graphics, analyze information, make predictions, and defend conclusions.

The Practice of Science

Differentiate replication (by others) from repetition (multiple trials).

The Practice of Science

Distinguish between an experiment (which must involve the identification and control of variables) and other forms of scientific investigation and explain that not all scientific knowledge is derived from experimentation.

The Practice of Science

Identify test variables (independent variables) and outcome variables (dependent variables) in an experiment.

The Practice of Science

Describe the methods used in the pursuit of a scientific explanation as seen in different fields of science such as biology, geology, and physics.

The Practice of Science

Explain that empirical evidence is the cumulative body of observations of a natural phenomenon on which scientific explanations are based.

The Practice of Science

Explain that scientific knowledge is the result of a great deal of debate and confirmation within the science community.

Characteristics of Scientific Knowledge

Identify an instance from the history of science in which scientific knowledge has changed when new evidence or new interpretations are encountered.

Theories, Laws, Hypotheses, & Models

Recognize and explain the difference between theories and laws and give several examples of scientific theories and the evidence that supports them.

Theories, Laws, Hypotheses, & Models

Identify the benefits and limitations of the use of scientific models.

Earth Structures

Describe the layers of the solid Earth, including the lithosphere, the hot convecting mantle, and the dense metallic liquid and solid cores.

Earth Structures

Identify the patterns within the rock cycle and relate them to surface events (weathering and erosion) and sub-surface events (plate tectonics and mountain building).

Earth Structures

Identify current methods for measuring the age of Earth and its parts, including the law of superposition and radioactive dating.

Earth Structures

Explain and give examples of how physical evidence supports scientific theories that Earth has evolved over geologic time due to natural processes.

Earth Structures

Explore the scientific theory of plate tectonics by describing how the movement of Earth's crustal plates causes both slow and rapid changes in Earth's surface, including volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and mountain building.

Earth Structures

Identify the impact that humans have had on Earth, such as deforestation, urbanization, desertification, erosion, air and water quality, changing the flow of water.

Earth Structures

Recognize that heat flow and movement of material within Earth causes earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, and creates mountains and ocean basins.

Forms of Energy

Illustrate that the sun's energy arrives as radiation with a wide range of wavelengths, including infrared, visible, and ultraviolet, and that white light is made up of a spectrum of many different colors.

Forms of Energy

Observe and explain that light can be reflected, refracted, and/or absorbed.

Forms of Energy

Recognize that light waves, sound waves, and other waves move at different speeds in different materials.

Energy Transfer and Transformations

Recognize that adding heat to or removing heat from a system may result in a temperature change and possibly a change of state.

Energy Transfer and Transformations

Investigate and describe the transformation of energy from one form to another.

Energy Transfer and Transformations

Cite evidence to explain that energy cannot be created nor destroyed, only changed from one form to another.

Energy Transfer and Transformations

Observe and describe that heat flows in predictable ways, moving from warmer objects to cooler ones until they reach the same temperature.

Diversity and Evolution of Living Organisms

Recognize that fossil evidence is consistent with the scientific theory of evolution that living things evolved from earlier species.

Diversity and Evolution of Living Organisms

Explore the scientific theory of evolution by recognizing and explaining ways in which genetic variation and environmental factors contribute to evolution by natural selection and diversity of organisms.

Diversity and Evolution of Living Organisms

Explore the scientific theory of evolution by relating how the inability of a species to adapt within a changing environment may contribute to the extinction of that species.

Heredity and Reproduction

Understand and explain that every organism requires a set of instructions that specifies its traits, that this hereditary information (DNA) contains genes located in the chromosomes of each cell, and that heredity is the passage of these instructions from one generation to another.

Heredity and Reproduction

Determine the probabilities for genotype and phenotype combinations using Punnett Squares and pedigrees.

Heredity and Reproduction

Compare and contrast the general processes of sexual reproduction requiring meiosis and asexual reproduction requiring mitosis.

Heredity and Reproduction

Recognize and explore the impact of biotechnology (cloning, genetic engineering, artificial selection) on the individual, society and the environment.

Interdependence

Explain and illustrate the roles of and relationships among producers, consumers, and decomposers in the process of energy transfer in a food web.

Interdependence

Compare and contrast the relationships among organisms such as mutualism, predation, parasitism, competition, and commensalism. 

[7.L.17.1-food web; 7.L.17.3-limiting factors]

Interdependence

Describe and investigate various limiting factors in the local ecosystem and their impact on native populations, including food, shelter, water, space, disease, parasitism, predation, and nesting sites.