Ohio Academic Content Standards for Science
Benchmarks and Indicators
6-8 Science Benchmarks
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Earth and Space Sciences |
Life Sciences |
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A. Describe how the positions and
motions of the objects in the universe cause predictable and cyclic events. B. Explain that the universe is
composed of vast amounts of matter, most of which is at incomprehensible
distances and held together by gravitational force. Describe how the universe
is studied by the use of equipment such as telescopes, probes, satellites and
spacecraft. C. Describe interactions of matter
and energy throughout the lithosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere (e.g.,
water cycle, weather and pollution). D. Identify that the lithosphere
contains rocks and minerals and that minerals make up rocks. Describe how rocks
and minerals are formed and/or classified. E. Describe the processes that
contribute to the continuous changing of Earth's surface (e.g., earthquakes,
volcanic eruptions, erosion, mountain building and lithospheric plate
movements). |
A. Explain that the basic functions
of organisms are carried out in cells and groups of specialized cells form
tissues and organs; the combination of these cells make up multicellular
organisms that have a variety of body plans and internal structures. B. Describe the characteristics of
an organism in terms of a combination of inherited traits and recognize
reproduction as a characteristic of living organisms essential to the
continuation of the species. C. Explain how energy entering the
ecosystems as sunlight supports the life of organisms through photosynthesis
and the transfer of energy through the interactions of organisms and the
environment. D. Explain how extinction of a
species occurs when the environment changes and its adaptive characteristics
are insufficient to allow survival (as seen in evidence of the fossil
record). |
6-8 Science Benchmarks
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Physical Sciences |
Science and Technology |
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A. Relate uses, properties and
chemical processes to the behavior and/or arrangement of the small particles
that compose matter. B. In simple cases, describe the
motion of objects and conceptually describe the effects of forces on an
object. C. Describe renewable and
nonrenewable sources of energy (e.g., solar, wind, fossil fuels, biomass,
hydroelectricity, geothermal and nuclear energy) and the management of these
sources. D. Describe that energy takes many
forms, some forms represent kinetic energy and some forms represent potential
energy; and during energy transformations the total amount of energy remains
constant. |
A. Give examples of how
technological advances, influenced by scientific knowledge, affect the
quality of life. B. Design a solution or product
taking into account needs and constraints (e.g., cost, time, trade-offs,
properties of materials, safety and aesthetics). |
6-8 Science Benchmarks
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Scientific Inquiry |
Scientific Ways of Knowing |
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A. Explain that there are differing
sets of procedures for guiding scientific investigations and procedures are
determined by the nature of the investigation, safety considerations and
appropriate tools. B. Analyze and interpret data from
scientific investigations using appropriate mathematical skills in order to
draw valid conclusions. |
A. Use skills of scientific inquiry
processes (e.g., hypothesis, record keeping, description and explanation). B. Explain the importance of
reproducibility and reduction of bias in scientific methods. C. Give examples of how thinking
scientifically is helpful in daily life. |
Grade Six
Earth
and Space Sciences
|
Earth
Systems |
1. Describe the rock cycle and
explain that there are sedimentary, igneous and metamorphic rocks that have distinct
properties (e.g., color, texture) and are formed in different ways. 2. Explain that rocks are made of one or more minerals. 3. Identify minerals by their characteristic properties. |
Life
Sciences
|
Characteristics
and Structure
of Life |
1. Explain that many of the basic
functions of organisms are carried out by or within cells and are similar in
all organisms. 2. Explain that multicellular
organisms have a variety of specialized cells, tissues, organs and organ
systems that perform specialized functions. 3. Identify how plant cells differ
from animal cells (e.g., cell wall and chloroplasts). |
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Heredity |
4. Recognize that an individual
organism does not live forever; therefore reproduction is necessary for the
continuation of every species and traits are passed on to the next generation
through reproduction. 5. Describe that in asexual
reproduction all the inherited traits come from a single parent. 6. Describe that in sexual
reproduction an egg and sperm unite and some traits come from each parent, so
the offspring is never identical to either of its parents. 7. Recognize that likenesses between
parents and offspring (e.g., eye color, flower color) are inherited. Other
likenesses, such as table manners are learned. |
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Diversity
and Interdependence
of Life |
8. Describe how organisms may interact with one another. |
Physical
Sciences
|
Nature
of Matter |
1. Explain that equal volumes of
different substances usually have different masses. |
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2. Describe that in a chemical
change new substances are formed with different properties than the original
substance (e.g., rusting, burning). 3. Describe that in a physical
change (e.g., state, shape and size) the chemical properties of a substance
remain unchanged. 4. Describe that chemical and
physical changes occur all around us (e.g., in the human body, cooking and
industry). |
|
Nature
of Energy |
5. Explain that the energy found in
nonrenewable resources such as fossil fuels (e.g., oil, coal and natural gas)
originally came from the sun and may renew slowly over millions of years. 6. Explain that energy derived from
renewable resources such as wind and water is assumed to be available
indefinitely. 7. Describe how electric energy can
be produced from a variety of sources (e.g., sun, wind and coal). 8. Describe how renewable and
nonrenewable energy resources can be managed (e.g., fossil fuels, trees and
water). |
Science
and Technology
|
Understanding Technology |
1. Explain how technology influences the quality of life. 2. Explain how decisions about the
use of products and systems can result in desirable or undesirable
consequences (e.g., social and environmental). 3. Describe how automation (e.g., robots)
has changed manufacturing including manual labor being replaced by
highly-skilled jobs. 4. Explain how the usefulness of
manufactured parts of an object depend on how well their properties allow
them to fit and interact with other materials. |
|
Abilities
To Do Technological Design |
5. Design and build a product or
create a solution to a problem given one constraint (e.g., limits of cost and
time for design and production, supply of materials and environmental
effects). |
Scientific
Inquiry
|
Doing
Scientific Inquiry |
1. Explain that there are not fixed
procedures for guiding scientific investigations; however, the nature of an
investigation determines the procedures needed. |
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2. Choose the appropriate tools or
instruments and use relevant safety procedures to complete scientific
investigations. 3. Distinguish between observation and inference. 4. Explain that a single example can
never prove that something is always correct, but sometimes a single example
can disprove something. |
Scientific
Ways of Knowing
|
Nature
of Science |
1. Identify that hypotheses are valuable even when they are not
supported. |
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Ethical
Practices |
2. Describe why it is important to
keep clear, thorough and accurate records. |
|
Science
and Society |
3. Identify ways scientific thinking
is helpful in a variety of everyday settings. 4. Describe how the pursuit of
scientific knowledge is beneficial for any career and for daily life. 5. Research how men and women of all
countries and cultures have contributed to the development of science. |
Grade Seven
Earth
and Space Sciences
|
Earth
Systems |
1. Explain the biogeochemical cycles
which move materials between the lithosphere (land), hydrosphere (water) and
atmosphere (air). 2. Explain that Earth's capacity to
absorb and recycle materials naturally (e.g., smoke, smog and sewage) can
change the environmental quality depending on the length of time involved
(e.g. global warming). 3. Describe the water cycle and
explain the transfer of energy between the atmosphere and hydrosphere. 4. Analyze data on the availability
of fresh water that is essential for life and for most industrial and
agricultural processes. Describe how rivers, lakes and groundwater can be
depleted or polluted becoming less hospitable to life and even becoming
unavailable or unsuitable for life. 5. Make simple weather predictions
based on the changing cloud types associated with frontal systems. 6. Determine how weather
observations and measurements are combined to produce weather maps and that
data for a specific location at one point in time can be displayed in a
station model. 7. Read a weather map to interpret local, regional and national
weather. 8. Describe how temperature and
precipitation determine climatic zones (biomes) (e.g., desert, grasslands,
forests, tundra and alpine). 9. Describe the connection between
the water cycle and weather-related phenomenon (e.g., tornadoes, floods,
droughts and hurricanes). |
Life
Sciences
|
Characteristics
and Structure
of Life |
1. Investigate the great variety of
body plans and internal structures found in multicellular organisms. |
|
Diversity
and Interdependence
of Life |
2. Investigate how organisms or
populations may interact with one another through symbiotic relationships and
how some species have become so adapted to each other that neither could
survive without the other (e.g., predator-prey,
parasitism, mutualism and commensalism). |
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3. Explain how the number of
organisms an ecosystem can support depends on adequate biotic (living) resources
(e.g., plants, animals) and abiotic (non-living) resources (e.g., light,
water and soil). 4. Investigate how overpopulation impacts an ecosystem. 5. Explain that some environmental
changes occur slowly while others occur rapidly (e.g., forest and pond
succession, fires and decomposition). 6. Summarize the ways that natural
occurrences and human activity affect the transfer of energy in Earth's
ecosystems (e.g., fire, hurricanes, roads and oil spills). 7. Explain that photosynthetic cells
convert solar energy into chemical energy that is used to carry on life
functions or is transferred to consumers and used to carry on their life
functions. |
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Evolutionary Theory |
8. Investigate the great diversity among organisms. |
Physical
Sciences
|
Nature
of Matter |
1. Investigate how matter can change
forms but the total amount of matter remains constant. |
|
Nature
of Energy |
2. Describe how an object can have
potential energy due to its position or chemical composition and can have
kinetic energy due to its motion. 3. Identify different forms of
energy (e.g., electrical, mechanical, chemical, thermal, nuclear, radiant and
acoustic). 4. Explain how energy can change
forms but the total amount of energy remains constant. 5. Trace energy transformation in a simple closed system (e.g.,
a flashlight). |
Science
and Technology
|
Understanding Technology |
1. Explain how needs, attitudes and
values influence the direction of technological development in various
cultures. 2. Describe how decisions to develop
and use technologies often put environmental and economic concerns in direct
competition with each other. 3. Recognize that science can only
answer some questions and technology can only solve some human problems. |
|
Abilities
To Do Technological Design |
4. Design and build a product or
create a solution to a problem given two constraints (e.g., limits of cost
and time for design and production or supply of materials and environmental
effects). |
Scientific
Inquiry
|
Doing
Scientific Inquiry |
1. Explain that variables and
controls can affect the results of an investigation and that ideally one
variable should be tested at a time; however it is not always possible to
control all variables. 2. Identify simple independent and dependent variables. 3. Formulate and identify questions
to guide scientific investigations that connect to science concepts and can
be answered through scientific investigations. 4. Choose the appropriate tools and
instruments and use relevant safety procedures to complete scientific
investigations. 5. Analyze alternative scientific
explanations and predictions and recognize that there may be more than one
good way to interpret a given set of data. 6. Identify faulty reasoning and
statements that go beyond the evidence or misinterpret the evidence. 7. Use graphs, tables and charts to
study physical phenomena and infer mathematical relationships between
variables (e.g., speed and density). |
Scientific
Ways of Knowing
|
Ethical
Practices |
1. Show that the reproducibility of
results is essential to reduce bias in scientific investigations. 2. Describe how repetition of an experiment may reduce bias. |
|
Science
and Society |
3. Describe how the work of science
requires a variety of human abilities and qualities that are helpful in daily
life (e.g., reasoning, creativity, skepticism and openness). |
Grade Eight
Earth
and Space Sciences
|
The
Universe |
1. Describe how objects in the solar
system are in regular and predictable motions that explain such phenomena as
days, years, seasons, eclipses, tides and moon cycles. 2. Explain that gravitational force
is the dominant force determining motions in the solar system and in
particular keeps the planets in orbit around the sun. 3. Compare the orbits and
composition of comets and asteroids with that of Earth. 4. Describe the effect that
asteroids or meteoroids have when moving through space and sometimes entering
planetary atmospheres (e.g., meteor-"shooting star" and meteorite). 5. Explain that the universe
consists of billions of galaxies that are classified by shape. 6. Explain interstellar distances
are measured in light years (e.g., the nearest star beyond the sun is 4.3
light years away). 7. Examine the life cycle of a star and predict the next likely
stage of a star. 8. Name and describe tools used to
study the universe (e.g., telescopes, probes, satellites and spacecraft). |
|
Earth
Systems |
9. Describe the interior structure
of Earth and Earth's crust as divided into tectonic plates riding on top of
the slow moving currents of magma in the mantle. 10. Explain that most major
geological events (e.g., earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, hot spots and
mountain building) result from plate motion. 11. Use models to analyze the size
and shape of Earth, its surface and its interior (e.g., globes, topographic
maps, satellite images). 12. Explain that some processes
involved in the rock cycle are directly related to thermal energy and forces
in the mantle that drive plate motions. 13. Describe how landforms are
created through a combination of destructive (e.g., weathering and erosion)
and constructive processes (e.g., crustal deformation, volcanic eruptions and
deposition of sediment). |
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14. Explain that folding, faulting
and uplifting can rearrange the rock layers so the youngest is not always
found on top. 15. Illustrate how the three primary
types of plate boundaries (transform, divergent and convergent) cause
different landforms (e.g., mountains, volcanoes and ocean trenches). |
Life
Sciences
|
Heredity |
1. Describe that asexual
reproduction limits the spread of detrimental characteristics through a
species and allows for genetic continuity. 2. Recognize that in sexual
reproduction new combinations of traits are produced which may increase or decrease
an organism's chances for survival. |
|
Evolutionary Theory |
3. Explain how variations in
structure, behavior or physiology allow some organisms to enhance their
reproductive success and survival in a particular environment. 4. Explain that diversity of species
is developed through gradual processes over many generations (e.g., fossil
record). 5. Investigate how an organism
adapted to a particular environment may become extinct if the environment, as
shown by the fossil record, changes. |
Physical
Sciences
|
Forces
and Motion |
1. Describe how the change in the
position (motion) of an object is always judged and described in comparison
to a reference point. 2. Explain that motion describes the
change in the position of an object (characterized by a speed and direction)
as time changes. 3. Explain that an unbalanced force
acting on an object changes that object's speed and/or direction. |
|
Nature
of Energy |
4. Demonstrate that waves transfer energy. 5. Demonstrate that vibrations in
materials may produce waves that spread away from the source in all
directions (e.g., earthquake waves and sound waves). |
Science
and Technology
|
Understanding Technology |
1. Examine how science and
technology have advanced through the contributions of many different people,
cultures and times in history. |
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2. Examine how choices regarding the
use of technology are influenced by constraints caused by various unavoidable
factors (e.g., geographic location, limited resources, social, political and
economic considerations). |
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Abilities
To Do Technological Design |
3. Design and build a product or
create a solution to a problem given more than two constraints (e.g., limits
of cost and time for design and production, supply of materials and
environmental effects). 4. Evaluate the overall effectiveness of a product design or
solution. |
Scientific
Inquiry
|
Doing
Scientific Inquiry |
1. Choose the appropriate tools or
instruments and use relevant safety procedures to complete scientific
investigations. 2. Describe the concepts of sample
size and control and explain how these affect scientific investigations. 3. Read, construct and interpret
data in various forms produced by self and others in both written and oral
form (e.g., tables, charts, maps, graphs, diagrams and symbols). 4. Apply appropriate math skills to
interpret quantitative data (e.g., mean, median and mode). |
Scientific
Ways of Knowing
|
Nature
of Science |
1. Identify the difference between
description (e.g., observation and summary) and explanation (e.g., inference,
prediction, significance and importance). |
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Ethical
Practices |
2. Explain why it is important to
examine data objectively and not let bias affect observations. |