Units of Study

1st Quarter

 Matter and Its Interactions

•  States of Matter

•  Composition of molecules

•  Properties of molecules through chemical reactions

•  Synthetic material and natural resources

• Conservation of mass, energy, and atoms in chemical reactions

2nd Quarter

 Energy

• Transfer of energy in chemical reactions

• Kinetic and potential energy

• Interpret and analyze the relationships of energy from object to object

 From Molecules to Organism

• Cellular Life Processes

• Energy transfer from food to organism 

3rd Quarter

 Ecosystem Dynamics

• Effects of resource availability on organisms and populations of organisms in an ecosystem

• Interactions of organisms across multiple ecosystems

• Flow of energy among living and nonliving parts of an ecosystem

• How changes to physical or biological components of an ecosystem affect populations.

• Design solutions for maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem services.

4th Quarter

Earth & Human Activity

• Explain how uneven distributions of resources are the result of past and current geoscience processes.

• Design a method for monitoring and minimizing a human impact on the environment.

• Analyze how increases in human population and per-capita consumption of natural resources impact Earth's systems.

• Clarify evidence of the factors that have impacted global temperatures over the past century.