| Standard/Description | Grades 3-5 | Grades 6-8 | Grades 9-12 |
| 1/Properties of Matter | Students understand that matter has observable properties that can be described, measured and recorded, that everything is made of matter, and that matter can be transformed. | Students understand that substances have characteristic properties such as density, boiling point, and solubility, which are independent of the amount of the sample. A mixture of substances can often be separated into the original substances by using one or more of these characteristic properties. | Students understand that matter consists primarily of mixtures of compounds, solutions, and elements. Pure substances are distinguished from mixtures, through experimentation and deductive reasoning, as matter that has a single set of characteristic properties, including boiling point, freezing point, density, solubility, viscosity, and conductivity. |
| 2/Energy and Transformations | Students understand that energy can be stored, transformed, and made to do work in observable and describable ways. | Students understand that energy exists in many forms, including heat, light, chemical, nuclear, mechanical, and electrical which can be transformed from one form to another. | Students understand that energy is conserved during chemical and physical changes. Energy cannot be created or destroyed, but transformed (potential to kinetic, kinetic to potential) from one form into another. |
| 3/Light | Students understand that light travels through some materials but not others, recognizing that light may be reflected, refracted, absorbed, or a combination of any of the above. | Students understand that light interacts with matter by transmission (including refraction), absorption, or scattering (including reflection). To see an object, light from that object-emitted by or scattered from it-must enter the eye. | Students understand that electromagnetic radiation has various properties, such as wavelength, frequency, and speed. Electromagnetic radiation has both wave and particle characteristics, and is produced by moving (vibrating) electrons. |
| 4/Magnetism and Electricity | Students understand that an electrical current produces a magnetic field. | Students understand that magnetic forces are very closely related to electric forces and can be thought of as different aspects of a single electromagnetic force. Moving electric charges produce magnetic forces and moving magnets produce electric forces. | Students understand that permanent magnets have poles, and like-poles repel and unlike-poles attract each other. The movement of charged particles produces magnetic fields and only changes direction of an already moving charged particle. |
| 5/Changes in Matter | Students understand how temperature and pressure affect matter. | Students understand that by varying pressure, temperature and volume, substances can undergo either chemical changes in which a new substance with different properties is formed or physical changes where substances retain their characteristic properties yet undergo a change of state. | Students understand that chemical and physical changes are affected by various factors, such as, reactant concentration (moles per liter), temperature, pressure and volume. Temperature, concentration, and surface area are important factors in determining reaction rates. |
| 6/Structures in Matter | Students understand that matter is composed of small, stable particles too small to be seen individually. | Students understand that matter is composed of the same basic indestructible particles that remain constant through any chemical or physical change. These particles can act alone (atoms) or in groups (molecules) to form matter in all its multitude of forms. | Students understand that atoms are composed of electrons, protons, and neutrons and that these atoms may also exist in a charged state (ions) or with a different atomic mass (isotopes). |
| 7/Mechanics | Students understand that an object stays at rest until acted upon by an unbalanced force: the greater the force, the greater the motion. | Students understand that if more than one force acts upon an object, then the forces can reinforce or cancel one another, depending on their direction and magnitude. Unbalanced forces will cause changes in the speed and/or direction of an object's motion. | Students understand that Newton's laws of motion state that the change in motion of an object is proportional to the force applied to it and is inversely proportional to its mass; whenever one object exerts a force on another, an equal amount of force is exerted back on it; and an object in motion or at rest remains as such unless acted upon by another force. |
| 8/Energy and Work | Students understand that when energy is added to a system, work may be produced. | Students understand that when energy is applied to a system, a certain amount of energy appears to be "lost" but is, in fact, "transformed." This transformation can explain much of the phenomena of the universe—from exploding stars and biological growth to the operation of machines and the motion of people—and that heat is almost always one of the products of this process. | Students understand that the more energy-efficient a system, the less the loss of energy/heat by friction, and the greater amount of work can be produced for each unit of energy. |
| 9/Sound | Students understand that sound is created by the vibration of matter. | Students understand that sound is an example of a vibration traveling, in a specific medium, away from its source causing a wavelike disturbance. These and other waves move at different speeds in different media. | Students understand that sound is produced by vibrating matter. It can be transmitted differently through different media, and can interact with matter and other sound waves in a variety of interference patterns that are either constructive or destructive (Doppler effect). |
10/15/99