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Students demonstrate an understanding about how Earth systems and processes interact in the geosphere resulting in the habitability of Earth. This includes demonstrating an understanding of the composition of the universe, the solar system and Earth. In addition, it includes understanding the properties and the interconnected nature of Earth’s systems, processes that shape Earth and Earth’s history. Students also demonstrate an understanding of how the concepts and principles of energy, matter, motion and forces explain Earth systems, the solar system and the universe. Finally, they grasp an understanding of the historical perspectives, scientific approaches and emerging scientific issues associated with Earth and space sciences.

Benchmark A: Describe how the positions and motions of the objects in the universe cause predictable and cyclic events.
Grade Six
No indicators present for this benchmark.
Grade Seven
No indicators present for this benchmark.
Grade Eight
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).

Benchmark 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.
Grade Six
No indicators present for this benchmark.
Grade Seven
No indicators present for this benchmark.
Grade Eight
The Universe
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).

Benchmark C: Describe interactions of matter and energy throughout the lithosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere (e.g., water cycle, weather and pollution).
Grade Six
No indicators present for this benchmark.
Grade Seven
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).
Grade Eight
No indicators present for this benchmark.

Benchmark 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.
Grade Six
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.
Grade Seven
No indicators present for this benchmark.
Grade Eight
No indicators present for this benchmark.

Benchmark 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).
Grade Six
No indicators present for this benchmark.
Grade Seven
No indicators present for this benchmark.
Grade Eight
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).
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).

Students demonstrate an understanding of how living systems function and how they interact with the physical environment. This includes an understanding of the cycling of matter and flow of energy in living systems. An understanding of the characteristics, structure and function of cells, organisms and living systems will be developed. Students will also develop a deeper understanding of the principles of heredity, biological evolution, and the diversity and interdependence of life. Students demonstrate an understanding of different historical perspectives, scientific approaches and emerging scientific issues associated with the life sciences.

Benchmark 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.
Grade Six
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).
Grade Seven
Characteristics and Structure of Life
1. Investigate the great variety of body plans and internal structures found in multicellular organisms.
Grade Eight
No indicators present for this benchmark.

Benchmark 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.
Grade Six
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.
Grade Seven
Evolutionary Theory
8. Investigate the great diversity among organisms.
Grade Eight
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.

Benchmark 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.
Grade Six
Diversity and Interdependence of Life
8. Describe how organisms may interact with one another.
Grade Seven
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).
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).
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.
Grade Eight
No indicators present for this benchmark.

Benchmark 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).
Grade Six
No indicators present for this benchmark.
Grade Seven
Diversity and Interdependence of Life
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).
Grade Eight
Evolutionary Theory
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.

Students demonstrate an understanding of the composition of physical systems and the concepts and principles that describe and predict physical interactions and events in the natural world. This includes demonstrating an understanding of the structure and properties of matter, the properties of materials and objects, chemical reactions and the conservation of matter. In addition, it includes understanding the nature, transfer and conservation of energy; motion and the forces affecting motion; and the nature of waves and interactions of matter and energy. Students demonstrate an understanding of the historical perspectives, scientific approaches and emerging scientific issues associated with the physical sciences.

Benchmark A: Relate uses, properties and chemical processes to the behavior and/or arrangement of the small particles that compose matter.
Grade Six
Nature of Matter
1. Explain that equal volumes of different substances usually have different masses.
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).
Grade Seven
Nature of Matter
1. Investigate how matter can change forms but the total amount of matter remains constant.
Grade Eight
No indicators present for this benchmark.

Benchmark B: In simple cases, describe the motion of objects and conceptually describe the effects of forces on an object.
Grade Six
No indicators present for this benchmark.
Grade Seven
No indicators present for this benchmark.
Grade Eight
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.

Benchmark 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.
Grade Six
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).
Grade Seven
No indicators present for this benchmark.
Grade Eight
No indicators present for this benchmark.

Benchmark 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.
Grade Six
No indicators present for this benchmark.
Grade Seven
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).
Grade Eight
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).

Students recognize that science and technology are interconnected and that using technology involves assessment of the benefits, risks and costs. Students should build scientific and technological knowledge, as well as the skill required to design and construct devices. In addition, they should develop the processes to solve problems and understand that problems may be solved in several ways.

Benchmark A: Give examples of how technological advances, influenced by scientific knowledge, affect the quality of life.
Grade Six
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.
Grade Seven
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.
Grade Eight
Understanding Technology
1. Examine how science and technology have advanced through the contributions of many different people, cultures and times in history.
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).

Benchmark B: Design a solution or product taking into account needs and constraints (e.g., cost, time, trade-offs, properties of materials, safety and aesthetics).
Grade Six
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).
Grade Seven
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).
Grade Eight
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.

Students develop scientific habits of mind as they use the processes of scientific inquiry to ask valid questions and to gather and analyze information. They understand how to develop hypotheses and make predictions. They are able to reflect on scientific practices as they develop plans of action to create and evaluate a variety of conclusions. Students are also able to demonstrate the ability to communicate their findings to others.

Benchmark 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.
Grade Six
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.
2. Choose the appropriate tools or instruments and use relevant safety procedures to complete scientific investigations.
Grade Seven
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.
Grade Eight
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.

Benchmark B: Analyze and interpret data from scientific investigations using appropriate mathematical skills in order to draw valid conclusions.
Grade Six
Doing Scientific Inquiry
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.
Grade Seven
Doing Scientific Inquiry
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).
Grade Eight
Doing Scientific Inquiry
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).

Students realize that the current body of scientific knowledge must be based on evidence, be predictive, logical, subject to modification and limited to the natural world. This includes demonstrating an understanding that scientific knowledge grows and advances as new evidence is discovered to support or modify existing theories, as well as to encourage the development of new theories. Students are able to reflect on ethical scientific practices and demonstrate an understanding of how the current body of scientific knowledge reflects the historical and cultural contributions of women and men who provide us with a more reliable and comprehensive understanding of the natural world.

Benchmark A: Use skills of scientific inquiry processes (e.g., hypothesis, record keeping, description and explanation).
Grade Six
Nature of Science
1. Identify that hypotheses are valuable even when they are not supported.
Ethical Practices
2. Describe why it is important to keep clear, thorough and accurate records.
Grade Seven
No indicators present for this benchmark.
Grade Eight
Nature of Science
1. Identify the difference between description (e.g., observation and summary) and explanation (e.g., inference, prediction, significance and importance).

Benchmark B: Explain the importance of reproducibility and reduction of bias in scientific methods.
Grade Six
No indicators present for this benchmark.
Grade Six
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.
Grade Eight
Ethical Practices
2. Explain why it is important to examine data objectively and not let bias affect observations.

Benchmark C: Give examples of how thinking scientifically is helpful in daily life.
Grade Six
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
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
No indicators present for this benchmark.

All of the information on this site is available in pdf and/or Word format at the Ohio Department of Education Web Site at http://www.ode.state.oh.us/

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Standard: Earth and Space Sciences

Standard: Life Sciences

Standard: Physical Sciences

Standard: Science and Technology

Standard: Scientific Inquiry

Standard: Scientific Ways of Knowing