Science Curriculum Goals

Students will:

• Make decisions that reflect their Christian identity when faced with scientific moral issues.
• Use the scientific method in problem solving.
• Communicate theories, research, and conclusions in science by using writing, speaking, listening and technical skills.
• Display respect in their interactions with the environments of which they are members.
• Exhibit organizational skills, intellectual curiosity and growth, and application of what has been learned in science both to future schoolwork and to lifelong learning.
• Use higher order thinking skills including comprehension, application, analysis, evaluation, and synthesis in learning concepts in life science, earth science, and physical science.
• Use research, inquiry, and technology skills to find and evaluate needed scientific information from a variety of sources.
• Exhibit a respect for diversity in nature and awareness of global issues.
• Make good decisions regarding nutrition, personal health behavior, and disease prevention.
• Use creativity in scientific problem solving.

Kindergarten Science Curriculum

Goals:

Students will:

1. Compare and contrast applications of science in technology.
2. Compare and contrast in earth science.
3. Show appreciation for environmental science.
4. Distinguish between healthy and risky behaviors.
5. Show appreciation for good nutrition.
6. Recognize animals.
7. Identify plants.
8. Recognize human beings.
9. Demonstrate use of science equipment.
10. Research and participate in space science.
11. Participate in the stewardship of God’s creation.

Content

1. X-rays, video clips in technology class
2. Calendar, weather chart
3. Importance of recycling
4. Hand washing, proper hygiene, dental health
5. Food groups, eating habits
6. Animal babies, mothers and their habitat
7. Planting seeds, recording growth
8. Skeletons, x-rays
9. Magnifying glass, skeleton model, magnets
10. Constellation models, planets
11. Ways to reduce, reuse, and recycle

1st Grade Science Curriculum

Goals:

Students will:

1. Research the five senses.
   
2. Distinguish between living and nonliving things.
   
3. Identify and describe the life cycle plants and animals.
   
4. Define animal habitats.
   
5. Identify and define the four seasons.
   
6. Research changes in weather.
   
7. Describe ways to care for our earth.
   

Content

1. Smell, hearing, taste, touch, sight
2. Basic needs of all living things: air, water, food
3. Life cycles of apple trees, pumpkins, leaves, butterflies, frogs
4. Woodland forest, rainforest, arctic, desert, ocean
5. Spring, summer, fall, winter
6. Types of weather; wind, temperature, and precipitation
7. Caring for animals, plants and people

2nd Grade Science Curriculum

Goals:

Students will:

1. Identify the parts of plants and their functions.
2. Research the ways people use plants.
3. Compare and contrast animal groups.
4. Identify a food chain.
5. Compare and contrast animal habitats.
6. Define pollution and its effect on habitats.
7. Identify evaporation, condensation and the water cycle.
8. Compare and contrast extreme types of weather.
9. Define fossils and how paleontologists work with fossils.
10. Research what happens to animals who cannot meet their needs.
11. Identify how sun gives heat and light to earth and causes night and day.
12. Research earth’s orbit and seasonal changes.
13. Describe what causes moonlight and moon phases.
14. Define stars and discuss constellations.
15. Identify the planets of the solar system.

Content

1. Parts of a plant (leaves, stem, roots, flower, fruit) and functions ways people use plants
2. Traits of animal groups (mammals, birds, fish, insects, amphibians, reptiles)
3. Food chain (ocean habitat)
4. Animal habitats ( woodland forest, rainforest, desert, artic, ocean )
5. Pollution ( garbage, oil, air pollutants )
6. Evaporation, condensation, water cycle
7. Extreme types of weather ( hurricane, tornado, drought, flood )
8. Fossils, paleontologist
9. Animals not meeting needs ( extinction)
10. Sun / earth ( heat, light, day, night )
11. Earth’s orbit and seasonal changes
12. Moonlight as reflective light, moon phases
13. Stars, constellations
14. Planets of the solar system ( Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto )

3rd Grade Science Curriculum

Goals:

Students will:

1. Identify the process of photosynthesis.
2. Identify inherited and learned traits of animals.
3. Classify animals according to characteristics.
4. Define an ecosystem and its parts.
5. Explore adaptations in ecosystems.
6. Explain how plants and animals interact with the environment and each other.
7. Define and explain an energy pyramid.
8. Identify kinds of resources.
9. Compare and contrast the sun, the planets and their orbits.
10. Describe the properties of matter.
11. Compare and contrast the properties of matter.
12. Describe how matter is combined.
13. Describe how matter changes.
14. Research the elements.

Content

1. Photosynthesis, chlorophyll
2. Physical and learned traits of animals
3. Characteristics of mammals, birds, amphibians, fish, reptiles, insects
4. Ecosystems, population, community, habitat
5. Survival characteristics of animals
6. Producer, consumer, decomposers
7. Food web, energy pyramid
8. Renewable resources, nonrenewable resources
9. Characteristics of sun, planets and their orbits
10. Solid, liquid, gas
11. Volume, mass
12. Mixture, solution
13. Evaporation, condensation, physical change
14. Compounds, chemical change

4th Grade Science Curriculum

Goals:

Students will:

1. Identify and compare / contrast the physical properties of rocks.
2. Describe and explain changes of rocks over time.
3. Explain how scientists compare and classify organisms of today and the past; describe reasons organisms become extinct.
4. Distinguish organisms and their habitats; where they live within an ecosystem.
5. Demonstrate knowledge of producers, consumers, and decomposers.
6. Interpret the path of energy in food chains and food webs.
7. Translate the changes in ecosystems – identify problems / solutions.
8. Analyze what makes up living things.
9. Distinguish plant / animal cells.
10. Identify organ systems in animals and describe functions.
11. Explain that animals must reproduce for their species to survive.
12. Compare / contrast different ways animals reproduce.

Content

1. Rocks ( minerals, igneous, sedimentary, metamorphic, fossils )
2. Changes of rocks over time
3. Classifying organisms ( kingdom, trait, genus, species ) / past ( fossils, extinction )
4. Organisms and where they live: ecosystem, community, habitat
5. Producers, consumers, decomposers
6. Path of energy in food chains and webs
7. Changes in ecosystems (drought, overpopulation, pollution, fire, disease)
8. Cells in living things
9. Plant / animal cells
10. Cell, tissue, organ, organ systems
11. Reproduction for survival
12. Development and reproduction

5th Grade Science Curriculum

Goals:

Students will:

1. Identify a number of structures found in plants and animals.
2. Discuss and research the great diversity of plants on earth.
3. Discuss and research the great diversity of animals on earth.
4. Define and discuss various ecosystems on the earth.
5. Be able to explain how a population and its ecosystem interact.
6. Discuss the importance of some of the earth’s rocks and minerals.
7. Discuss how atmospheric conditions affect weather and climate.
8. Discuss the properties of matter and energy.
9. Compare and contrast Newton’s Laws of Energy.

Content

1. Characteristics of living things, plant parts: roots, stems, leaves, why are plants important to us
2. Plants with seeds, plants without seeds, plant responses and adaptations, flowers and seeds
3. Animal structures and functions, animal adaptations
4. Food chains and food webs, cycles of life
5. How populations survive, biomes, how ecosystems change
6. The earth’s crust, the minerals in the earth’s crust, the earth’s rocks and soil
7. The sun’s effect on the earth, water vapor and humidity, clouds and precipitation, air pressure and wind, air masses and fronts, severe storms
8. Physical properties of matter, physical properties of mixtures and solutions
9. Newton’s three laws of energy

6th Grade Science Curriculum

Goals:

Students will:

1. Classify living things based on similarities and differences.
2. Identify the organization of living things from the most complex, the ecosystem, to the most basic, the cell.
3. Discuss the sun, moon and earth relationship in the solar system.
4. Research how the earth’s crust is constantly moving and changing.
5. Recognize the interaction between matter and energy on earth.
6. Apply the concepts of simple machines.
7. Participate in outdoor education.

Content

1. Six kingdoms to species, invertebrates, reproduction and growth
2. Cells organized into tissues, organs, organ systems: traits and how they are passed from parent to offspring, Gregor Mendel
3. Telescopes and satellites, interaction between earth, moon and sun
4. Earth’s plates, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, forces of weather, erosion and deposition, the rock cycle, geologic time
5. Properties and changes of matter, elements and atoms, chemical changes, submarine project
6. Speed and distance, forces and motion, acceleration, momentum, energy and work
7. Camp Ondessonk – outdoor education for one week, group building skills, nature lessons, Native American history, outdoor skills, environmental knowledge

7th Grade Science Curriculum

Goals:

Students will:

1. Apply the metric system.
2. Translate the work of prior scientists into daily applications.
3. Describe the relationships between work and machines.
4. Explain the movement of energy through the environment.
5. Show an appreciation of H2O as a resource.
6. Analyze populations.
7. Relate the needs of an ecosystem with the need to protect and conserve.
8. Participate in scientific processes.

Content

1. Calculate speed, force, acceleration, pressure, work
2. Newton, Pascal, Bernoulli, Archimedes
3. Efficiency, input/output forces
4. Energy and power – thermal energy and heat
   • a) H2O properties and cycle/availability vs. demand
   • b) ocean movement and zones
5. Population studies – classroom and field
6. Biogeography, biodiversity, conservation
7. Labs designed to explore content through discovery/inquiry

8th Grade Science Curriculum

Goals:

Students will:

1. Distinguish between different types of matter.
2. Explain the structure of the periodic table.
3. Apply facts of carbon chemistry.
4. Discuss the impact of activity that occurs beneath the earth’s surface.
5. Compare/contrast components of the earth.
6. Classify life forms.
7. Identify increasing complexity among life forms.

Content

1. Molecular structure, changes of state, products of reaction
2. Mendeleev, atomic number, chemical symbol, families, periods
3. Organic compounds, nucleic acids, equations for photosynthesis/respiration
4. Plate tectonics, earthquakes, volcanoes
5. Properties of rocks and minerals
6. Linnaeus’ system of Binomial Nomenclature
7. Survey of phyla