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Science in the Middle Grades:Excerpts from Benchmarks for Science Literacy |
Benchmarks for Science Literacy provides recommended levels of science understanding for students in grades K-12. In most instances, Benchmarks recommends levels for eighth graders that correspond to the TIMSS questions.
The Nature of Science: Scientific Inquiry At this level students need to become more systematic and sophisticated in conducting their investigations....That means closing in on an understanding of what constitutes a good experiment. The concept of controlling variables is straightforward but achieving it in practice is difficult.
By the end of the eighth grade students should know: Although there is no fixed set of steps that all scientists follow, scientific investigations usually involve the collection of relevant evidence, the use of logical reasoning, and the application of imagination in devising hypotheses and explanations to make sense of the collected data.
The Physical Setting: The Earth By the end of the eighth grade students should know: The cycling of water in and out of the atmosphere plays an important role in determining climatic patterns. Water evaporates from the surface of the earth, rises and cools, condenses into rain or snow, and falls again to the surface. The water falling on land collects in rivers and lakes, soil, and porous layers of rock, and much of it flows back into the ocean.
The Physical Setting: Energy Transformations At this level, students should be introduced to energy primarily through energy transformations. Students should trace where energy comes from (and goes next) in examples that involve several different forms of energy along the way: heat, light, motion of objects, chemical, and elastically distorted materials. To change something's speed, to bend or stretch things, to heat or cool them, to push things together or tear them apart all require transfers (and some transformations) of energy.
The Physical Setting: The Structure of Matter There seems to be no tidy and consistent way to relate the terms atom, molecule, ion, polymer, and crystal. A facility in discussing these terms will grow slowly over time.
By the end of the eighth grade students should know: All matter is made up of atoms, which are far too small to see directly through a microscope. Atoms may stick together in well-defined molecules or may be packed together in large arrays. Different arrangements of atoms into groups compose all substances.
The Living Environment: Diversity of Life Classification systems are not part ofnature. Rather, they are frameworks created by biologists for describing the vast diversity of organisms, suggesting relationships among living things, and framing research questions.
By the end of eighth grade, students should know that: Similarities among organisms are found in internal anatomical features, which can be used to infer the degree of relatedness among organisms. In classifying organisms, biologists consider details of internal and external structures to be more important than behavior or general appearance.
These excerpts are from several portions of Benchmarks for Science Literacy by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Available from Oxford University Press.
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