This resource has 98 correlations with the National Standards.  
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• Physical Science
  • Interactions of energy and matter
    • Electromagnetic waves include radio waves (the longest wavelength), microwaves, infrared radiation (radiant heat), visible light, ultraviolet radiation, x-rays, and gamma rays. (9-12)

• Life Science
  • Populations and ecosystems
    • A population consists of all individuals of a species that occur together at a given place and time. (5-8)
    • All populations living together and the physical factors with which they interact compose an ecosystem. (5-8)
    • Populations of organisms can be categorized by the function they serve in an ecosystem. (5-8)
    • Food webs identify the relationships among producers, consumers, and decomposers in an ecosystem. (5-8)
    • Energy passes from organism to organism in food webs (5-8)
    • The number of organisms an ecosystem can support depends on the resources available and abiotic factors, such as quantity of light and water, range of temperatures, and soil composition.
    • Lack of resources and other factors, such as predation and climate, limit the growth of populations in specific niches in the ecosystem. (5-8)
  • Biological evolution
    • Species evolve over time. (9-12)
    • Evolution is the consequence of the interactions of the genetic variability of offspring due to mutation and recombination of genes. (9-12)
    • Evolution is the consequence of the interactions of a finite supply of the resources required for life. (9-12)
    • Evolution is the consequence of the interactions of the ensuing selection by the environment of those offspring better able to survive and leave offspring. (9-12)
    • Natural selection and its evolutionary consequences provide a scientific explanation for the fossil record of ancient life forms, as well as for the striking molecular similarities observed among the diverse species of living organisms. (9-12)
    • The millions of different species of plants, animals, and microorganisms that live on earth today are related by descent from common ancestors. (9-12)
  • Interdependence of organisms
    • Energy flows through ecosystems in one direction, from photosynthetic organisms to herbivores to carnivores and decomposers. (9-12)
    • Organisms both cooperate and compete in ecosystems. (9-12)
    • Living organisms have the capacity to produce populations of infinite size, but environments and resources are finite. (9-12)
    • Human beings live within the world's ecosystems. (9-12)
    • Increasingly, humans modify ecosystems as a result of population growth, technology, and consumption. (9-12)
    • Human destruction of habitats through direct harvesting, pollution, atmospheric changes, and other factors is threatening current global stability, and if not addressed, ecosystems will be irreversibly affected. (9-12)
    • An example of habitat destruction is the pollution of the oceans. (9-12)
  • Matter, energy, and organization in living systems
    • Living systems require a continuous input of energy to maintain their chemical and physical organizations. With death, and the cessation of energy input, living systems rapidly disintegrate. (9-12)
    • Plants capture energy by absorbing light and using it to form strong (covalent) chemical bonds between the atoms of carbon-containing (organic) molecules. These molecules can be used to assemble larger molecules with biological activity (including proteins, DNA, sugars, and fats). (9-12)
    • Energy stored in bonds between the atoms (chemical energy) can be used as sources of energy for life processes. (9-12)
    • The chemical bonds of food molecules contain energy. (9-12)
    • The complexity and organization of organisms accommodates the need for obtaining, transforming, transporting, releasing, and eliminating the matter and energy used to sustain the organism. (9-12)
    • As matter and energy flows through different levels of organization of living systems--cells, organs, organisms, communities--and between living systems and the physical environment, chemical elements are recombined in different ways. (9-12)
  • Behavior of organisms
    • Multicellular animals have nervous systems that generate behavior. (9-12)
    • Nervous systems are formed from specialized cells that conduct signals rapidly through the long cell extensions that make up nerves. (9-12)
    • The nerve cells communicate with each other by secreting specific excitatory and inhibitory molecules. (9-12)
    • In sense organs, specialized cells detect light, sound, and specific chemicals and enable animals to monitor what is going on in the world around them. (9-12)
    • Organisms have behavioral responses to internal changes and to external stimuli. (9-12)
    • Responses to external stimuli can result from interactions with the organism's own species and others, as well as environmental changes; these responses either can be innate or learned. (9-12)
    • The broad patterns of behavior exhibited by animals have evolved to ensure reproductive success. (9-12)
    • Animals often live in unpredictable environments, and so their behavior must be flexible enough to deal with uncertainty and change. Plants also respond to stimuli. (9-12)
    • Like other aspects of an organism's biology, behaviors have evolved through natural selection. (9-12)
    • Behaviors often have an adaptive logic when viewed in terms of evolutionary principles. (9-12)

• Earth Science
  • Energy in the earth system
    • Heating of earth's surface and atmosphere by the sun drives convection within the atmosphere and oceans, producing winds and ocean currents. (9-12)
    • Global climate is determined by energy transfer from the sun at and near the earth's surface. (9-12)
    • The greenhouse effect is the warming effect on the air caused by heat rising from the surface of the Earth and being trapped by gases in the troposphere. (9-12)
    • The energy transfer from the sun at and near the earth's surface is influenced by dynamic processes such as cloud cover and the earth's rotation, and static conditions such as the position of mountain ranges and oceans. (9-12)

• Science as Inquiry
  • Abilities necessary to do scientific inquiry
    • Use data to construct a reasonable explanation.
    • Communicate investigations and explanations.
    • Design and conduct a scientific investigation.
    • Use appropriate tools and techniques to gather, analyze, and interpret data.
    • Think critically and logically to make the relationships between evidence and explanations.
    • Use mathematics in all aspects of scientific inquiry.
    • Use technology and mathematics to improve investigations and communications. (9-12)
    • Formulate and revise scientific explanations and models using logic and evidence. (9-12)
    • Recognize and analyze alternative explanations and models. (9-12)
    • Communicate and defend a scientific argument. (9-12)
  • Understandings about scientific inquiry
    • Types of investigations include describing objects, events, and organisms; classifying them; and doing a fair test (experimenting).
    • Scientists develop explanations using observations (evidence) and what they already know about the world (scientific knowledge). Good explanations are based on evidence from investigations. (K-4)
    • Mathematics is essential in scientific inquiry. (9-12)
    • In presenting data, graphs are used to convey comparisons or trends. (9-12)

• Science and Technology
  • Abilities of technological design
    • Propose designs and choose between alternative solutions. (9-12)
    • Implement a proposed solution. (9-12)
    • Communicate the problem, process, and solution. (9-12)

• Science in Personal and Social Perspectives
  • Changes in environments
    • Changes in environments can be natural or influenced by humans. Some changes are good, some are bad, and some are neither good nor bad.
  • Risks and benefits
    • Students should understand the risks associated, with biological hazards (pollen, viruses, bacterial, and parasites). (5-8)
  • Personal and community health
    • The severity of disease symptoms is dependent on many factors, such as human resistance and the virulence of the disease-producing organism. (9-12)
  • Natural and human-induced hazards
    • Normal adjustments of earth may be hazardous for humans. (9-12)
    • Humans live at the interface between the atmosphere driven by solar energy and the upper mantle where convection creates changes in the earth's solid crust. (9-12)
    • As societies have grown, become stable, and come to value aspects of the environment, vulnerability to natural processes of change has increased. (9-12)
    • Human activities can enhance potential for hazards. (9-12)
    • Pollutants are dumped into the oceans of the Earth. (9-12)
    • Some hazards, such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and severe weather, are rapid and spectacular. But there are slow and progressive changes that also result in problems for individuals and societies. (9-12)
    • Natural and human-induced hazards present the need for humans to assess potential danger and risk. (9-12)
    • Many changes in the environment designed by humans bring benefits to society, as well as cause risks. (9-12)
    • Students should understand the costs and trade-offs of various hazards--ranging from those with minor risk to a few people to major catastrophes with major risk to many people. (9-12)
    • The scale of events and the accuracy with which scientists and engineers can (and cannot) predict events are important considerations. (9-12)
  • Sci and Tech in local, natl, and global challenges
    • Understanding basic concepts and principles of science and technology should precede active debate about the economics, policies, politics, and ethics of various science- and technology-related challenges. (9-12)
    • Understanding science alone will not resolve local, national, or global challenges. (9-12)
    • Humans have a major effect on other species. (9-12)
    • The influence of humans on other organisms occurs through pollution--which changes the chemical composition of air, soil, and water. (9-12)

• History and Nature of Science
  • Science as a human endeavor
    • Scientists have ethical traditions. (9-12)
    • Scientists value peer review, truthful reporting about the methods and outcomes of investigations, and making public the results of work. Violations of such norms do occur, but scientists responsible for such violations are censured by their peers. (9-12)
    • Science is not separate from society but rather science is a part of society. (9-12)
  • Nature of science
    • Scientists formulate and test their explanations of nature using observation, experiments, and theoretical and mathematical models. Those ideas are not likely to change greatly in the future. (5-8)
    • Although all scientific ideas are tentative and subject to change and improvement in principle, for most major ideas in science, there is much experimental and observational confirmation. (5-8)
    • Scientists do and have changed their ideas about nature when they encounter new experimental evidence that does not match their existing explanations.
    • In areas where active research is being pursued and in which there is not a great deal of experimental or observational evidence and understanding, it is normal for scientists to differ with one another about the interpretation of the evidence or theory being considered. (5-8)
    • Different scientists might publish conflicting experimental results or might draw different conclusions from the same data. (5-8)
    • Ideally, scientists acknowledge such conflict and work towards finding evidence that will resolve their disagreement. (5-8)
    • It is part of scientific inquiry to evaluate the results of scientific investigations, experiments, observations, theoretical models, and the explanations proposed by other scientists. As scientific knowledge evolves, major disagreements are eventually resolved through such interactions between scientists. (5-8)
    • Evaluation includes reviewing the experimental procedures, examining the evidence, identifying faulty reasoning, pointing out statements that go beyond the evidence, and suggesting alternative explanations for the same observations. (5-8)
    • Although scientists may disagree about explanations of phenomena, about interpretations of data, or about the value of rival theories, they do agree that questioning, response to criticism, and open communication are integral to the process of science. (5-8)
  • Nature of scientific knowledge
    • Science distinguishes itself from other ways of knowing and from other bodies of knowledge through the use of empirical standards, logical arguments, and skepticism, as scientists strive for the best possible explanations about the natural world. (9-12)
    • Scientific explanations must meet certain criteria. (9-12)
    • Scientific explanations should be logical, respect the rules of evidence, be open to criticism, report methods and procedures, and make knowledge public. (9-12)
    • Because all scientific ideas depend on experimental and observational confirmation, all scientific knowledge is, in principle, subject to change as new evidence becomes available. (9-12)

• Process Standards for Professional Development
  • Design
    • Introduce teachers to scientific literature, media, and technological resources that expand their science knowledge and their ability to access further knowledge. (NSES)

• Teaching Standards
  • Teachers of science plan an inquiry-based science program for their students.
    • Select teaching and assessment strategies that support the development of student understanding and nurture a community of science learners.
  • Teachers of science guide and facilitate learning. In doing this, teachers
    • Encourage and model the skills of scientific inquiry, as well as the curiosity, openness to new ideas and data, and skepticism that characterize science.
  • Teachers provide students with the time, space, and resources needed to learn science.
    • Create a setting for student work that is flexible and supportive of science inquiry.
    • Make the available science tools, materials, media, and technological resources accessible to students.
    • Identify and use resources outside the school.
  • Teachers of science develop communities of science learners that reflect the intellectual rigor of scientific inquiry.
    • Nurture collaboration among students.