Enduring Understandings

Students will understand that …

Scientific methods are useful tools in making sense of the natural w1orld and in solving problems.

Science is both a process of learning and a body of knowledge.

Everything we know about in the universe is made of matter and energy.

Matter and energy change forms.

All kinds of matter can be identified based on their physical and chemical properties.

An atom is the basic unit of every element.

All the matter in the universe is characterized in the Periodic Table of the Elements.

Interactions between atoms cause chemical changes that produce new substances with different chemical properties.

Earth is a geologically active planet.

Huge quantities of energy are always acting on the surface of the Earth and its interior.

Observable evidence in the present gives information about processes and events that occurred in the past.

The Sun is the major source of energy for the Earth.

Water circulates through Earth’s crust, oceans, and atmosphere in the water cycle.

Weather and climate are the result of the interactions among Earth’s water, its atmosphere and the Sun’s heating of Earth’s surface.

Transfers of energy within and between systems never change the total amount of energy, but energy tends to become more dispersed.

Understanding wave properties allows us to use electromagnetic and sound waves to investigate nature on many scales.

Earth has seasons because of its tilt and its revolution around the Sun.

The relative positions and the movements of the Earth, Sun and Moon create patterns observed in phases, eclipses, tides and seasons.

The Earth, Moon and Sun interact in ways that affect our planet in fundamental ways.

The Earth is just one planet in the solar system, in a galaxy of billions of stars, in a universe of billions of other galaxies.