• National Science Education Standards - Content Topics, and Rationale

NSES Content Standard

• Science and Technology K-4

• Abilities to distinguish between natural objects and objects made by humans

  Some objects occur in nature while others have been designed and made by people to solve human problems.

  Objects can be categorized into two groups, natural and designed.

• Science and Technology K-4

• Abilities of technological design

  Identify a simple problem. In problem identification, children should develop the ability to explain a problem in their own words and identify a specific task and solution related to the problem.

  Propose a solution. Students should make proposals to build something or get something to work better; they should be able to describe and communicate their ideas. Students should recognize that designing a solution may have constraints, such as cost, materials time, space, and safety.

  Implementing proposed solutions. Children should develop abilities to work individually and collaboratively, and to use suitable tools, techniques, and quantitative measurements where appropriate. Students should demonstrate the ability to balance simple constraints in problem solving.

  Evaluate a product or design. Students should evaluate their results or solutions to problems, and those of other children, by considering how well they meet the challenge to solve the problem. When possible, they should use measurements and include constraints and other criteria in their evaluation. Students should modify the design based on the results of the evaluation.

  Communicate a problem, design, and solution. Student abilities should include oral, written, and pictorial communication of both the design process and product. The communication may take the form of show and tell, group discussions, short written reports, or pictures depending on the students' abilities and the design project.

• Science and Technology K-4

• Understanding about science and technology

  Scientists and engineers often work in teams with different individuals doing different things that contribute to the results. This understanding focuses primarily on teams working together, and secondarily, on the combination of scientist and engineer teams.

  Women and men of all ages, backgrounds, and groups, engage in the varieties of scientific and technologic work.

  Tools help scientists make better observations, measurements, and equipment for investigations. They help scientists see, measure, and do things that they could not otherwise see, measure and do.

  People have always had questions about their world. Science is one way of answering questions and explaining the natural world.

  People have always had problems and invented tools and techniques (ways of doing something) to solve problems. Trying to determine the effects of solution helps people avoid some new problems.

• Science in Personal and Social perspectives K-4

• Science and technology in local challenges

  People continue inventing new ways of doing things, solving problems, and getting work done. These new ideas and inventions often affect other people, sometimes the effects are good and sometimes they are bad. It is helpful to try and figure out ahead of time how ideas and inventions will affect other people.

  Science and technology have improved transportation, health, sanitation, and communication. The benefits of science and technology are not available to all people.

NSES Content Standard

• Physical Science K-4

• Light, heat, electricity, and magnetism

  Electricity in circuits can produce light, heat, sound, and magnetic effects.

  Electrical circuits require a complete loop through which the electrical current can pass.

  Magnets attract and repel each other and certain kinds of metals.

NSES Content Standard

• Physical Science K-4

• Light, heat, electricity, and magnetism

  Light travels in a straight line unless it strikes an object Light can be reflected by a mirror, refracted by a lens, or absorbed by the object.

  Heat can be produced in many ways such as burning, rubbing, and mixing chemicals. The heat can move from one object to another by conduction.

• Physical Science K-4

• Position and motion of objects

  Vibrating objects produce sound. The pitch of the sound can be varied by changing the rate of vibration.

NSES Content Standard

• Physical Science K-4

• Properties of objects and materials

  Objects have many observable properties, including size, weight, shape, color, temperature, and the ability to react with other substances. These properties can be measured using tools such as rulers, balances, and thermometers.

  Objects are made of one or more materials, such as paper, wood, and metal. -Objects can be described by the properties of the materials from which they are made, and these properties can be used to separate or sort a group of objects or materials.

  Materials have different states - solid, liquid, and gas. Some common materials such as water can be changed from one state to another by heating or cooling.

NSES Content Standard

• Life Science K-4

• The characteristics of organisms

  Organisms have basic needs, which for animals are air, water, and food. -Organisms can only survive in environments in which they can meet their needs. The world has many different environments, and distinct environments support the life of different types of organisms.

  Each plant or animal has different structures which serve different functions in growth, survival, and reproduction. For example, humans have distinct structures of the body for walking, holding, seeing, and talking.

  The behavior of individual organisms is influenced by internal cues such as hunger and by external cues such as an environmental change. Humans and other organisms have senses that help them detect internal and external cues.

• Life Science K-4

• Life Cycles of organisms

  Plants and animals have life cycles that include being born, developing into adults, reproducing, and eventually dying. The details of this life cycle are different for different organisms.

  Plants and animals closely resemble their parents.

  Many characteristics of an organism are inherited from the parents of the organism, but other characteristics result from, an individual's interactions with the environment. Inherited characteristic include the color of flowers and the number of limbs of an animal. Other features such as the ability to play a musical instrument, are learned through interactions with the environment.

• Life Science K-4

• Organisms and their environments

  All animals depend on plants. Some animals eat plants for food. Other animals eat animals that eat the plants.

NSES Content Standard

• Life Science K-4

• The characteristics of organisms

  Plants require air, water and light.

  Each plant or animal has different structures which serve different functions in growth, survival, and reproduction. For example, humans have distinct structures of the body for walking, holding, seeing, and talking.

• Life Science K-4

• Life Cycles of organisms

  Plants and animals have life cycles that include being born, developing into adults, reproducing, and eventually dying. The details of this life cycle are different for different organisms.

  Plants and animals closely resemble their parents.

  Many characteristics of an organism are inherited from the parents of the organism, but other characteristics result from, an individual's interactions with the environment. Inherited characteristic include the color of flowers and the number of limbs of an animal. Other features such as the ability to play a musical instrument, are learned through interactions with the environment.

• Life Science K-4

• Organisms and their environments

  All animals depend on plants. Some animals eat plants for food. Other animals eat animals that eat the plants.

NSES Content Standard

• Life Science K-4

• The characteristics of organisms

  Each plant or animal has different structures which serve different functions in growth, survival, and reproduction. For example, humans have distinct structures of the body for walking, holding, seeing, and talking.

• Science in Personal and Social perspectives K-4

• Personal health

  Different substances can damage the body and how it functions. Such substances include tobacco, alcohol, over-the-counter medicines, and illicit drugs. Students should understand that some substances such as prescription drugs can be beneficial but that any substance can be harmful.

NSES Content Standard

• Life Science K-4

• Organisms and their environments

  All animals depend on plants. Some animals eat plants for food. Other animals eat animals that eat the plants.

  An organism's patterns of behavior are related to the nature of that organism's environment, including the kinds and numbers of other organisms present, the availability of food and resources, and the physical characteristics of the environment. When the environment changes, some plants and animals survive and reproduce, and others die or move to new locations.

  All organisms cause changes in the environment where they live. Some of these changes are detrimental to themselves or other organisms, whereas others are beneficial.

  Humans depend on both their natural and their constructed environment. -Humans change environments in ways that can either be beneficial or detrimental for other organisms, including the humans themselves.

NSES Content Standard

• Science in Personal and Social perspectives K-4

• Types of resources

  Resources include those things that we get from the living and nonliving environment to meet the needs and wants of a population.

  Some resources include basic materials, such as air, water, and soil; some are produced from basic resources, such as food, fuel, and building materials; and some resources are nonmaterial, such as quiet places, beauty, security, and safety.

  The supply of many resources is limited. If used, those materials can be extended through recycling and decreased use.

• Science in Personal and Social perspectives K-4

• Changes in environments

  Environments include the space, conditions, and factors that affect individual's and population's ability to survive and quality of life.

  Changes in environments can be natural or influenced by humans. Some changes are good, some neither good nor bad, and some are bad. Pollution is a change in the environment that can influence the health, survival, or activities of organisms, including humans.

  Some environmental changes occur slowly, and others occur rapidly. -Students should understand the differences and consequences of changing environments in small increments over long periods of time and changes that occur in large increments in short periods.

NSES Content Standard

• Earth and Space Science K-4

• Objects in the sky

  The sun, moon, stars, clouds, birds, and airplanes all have properties, locations, and movements that can be described and that may change.

  Objects in the sky have patters of movement. The Sun, for example, appears to move across the sky in the same way every day, but its path changes slowly over the seasons. The moon moves across the sky on a daily basis much like the sun. The shape of the moon seems to change from day to day in a cycle that lasts about a month.

  The sun provides the light and heat necessary to maintain the temperature of the Earth.

NSES Content Standard

• Earth and Space Science K-4

• Objects in the sky

  Weather can change from day to day and over the season. Weather can be described by measurable quantities, such as temperature, wind direction and speed, precipitation, and humidity.

NSES Content Standard

• Earth and Space Science K-4

• Properties of Earth materials

  Earth materials are solid rocks and soils, liquid water, and the gases of the atmosphere. These varied materials have different physical and chemical properties. These properties make them useful, for example, as building materials, as sources of fuel, or for growing the plants we use as food.

  Earth materials provide many of the resources humans use.

  Soils have properties of color and texture, capacity to retain water and ability to support the growth of many kinds of plants, including those in our food supply. Other Earth materials are used to construct buildings, make plastics and provide fuel for generating electricity and operating cars and trucks.

  The surface of the Earth changes. Some changes are due to slow processes, such as erosion and weathering, and some changes are due to rapid processes such as landslides, volcanoes, and earthquakes.

  Fossils provide evidence about the plants and animals that lived long ago and nature of the environment at that time.

NSES Content Standard

• No correlation

• No correlation

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This is the time this file has been accessed since 02/17/96.

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Last Modified Monday, 18-Mar-2002 15:20:25 CST