Grade 4

Performance Expectations:

In fourth grade performance expectations, students are expected to demonstrate grade-appropriate proficiency in asking questions, developing and using models, planning and carrying out investigations, analyzing and interpreting data, constructing explanations and designing solutions, engaging in argument from evidence, and obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information. Students are expected to use these practices to demonstrate understanding of the core ideas.

NGSS Summary:

The performance expectations in fourth grade help students formulate answers to questions such as: "What are waves and what are some things they can do? How can water, ice, wind, and vegetation change the land? What patterns of Earth’s features can be determined with the use of maps? How do internal and external structures support the survival, growth, behavior, and reproduction of plants and animals? What is energy and how is it related to motion? How is energy transferred? How can energy be used to solve a problem?" Fourth grade performance expectations include PS3, PS4, LS1, ESS1, ESS2, ESS3, and ETS1 disciplinary core ideas from the NRC Framework.

Disciplinary Core Ideas from NCR Framework:

Students are able to use a model of waves to describe patterns of waves in terms of amplitude and wavelength, and that waves can cause objects to move. Students are expected to develop understanding of the effects of weathering or the rate of erosion by water, ice, wind, or vegetation. They apply their knowledge of natural Earth processes to generate and compare multiple solutions to reduce the impacts of such processes on humans. In order to describe patterns of Earth’s features, students analyze and interpret data from maps. Fourth graders are expected to develop an understanding that plants and animals have internal and external structures that function to support survival, growth, behavior, and reproduction. By developing a model, they describe that an object can be seen when light reflected from its surface enters the eye. Students are able to use evidence to construct an explanation of the relationship between the speed of an object and the energy of that object. Students are expected to develop an understanding that energy can be transferred from place to place by sound, light, heat, and electrical currents or from object to object through collisions. They apply their understanding of energy to design, test, and refine a device that converts energy from one form to another. 

Crosscutting Concepts:

The crosscutting concepts of patterns; cause and effect; energy and matter; systems and system models; interdependence of science, engineering, and technology; and influence of engineering, technology, and science on society and the natural world are called out as organizing concepts for these disciplinary core ideas.

These strands are not to be taught in a sequential order, but should be integrated throughout the year.

Physical Science Concepts

Core Ideas:

• • 4-PS3: Energy

  • PS3.A: Definitions of Energy 

    • • The faster a given object is moving; the more energy it possesses. (4-PS3.1)

      • Energy can be moved from place to place by moving objects or through sound, light, or electric currents. (4-PS3.2-3)

  • PS3.B: Conservation of Energy and Energy Transfer 

    • • Energy is present whenever there are moving objects, sound, light, or heat. When objects collide, energy can be transferred from one object to another, thereby changing their motion. In such collisions, some energy is typically also transferred to the surrounding air; as a result, the air gets heated and sound is produced. (4-PS3.2-3)

      • Light also transfers energy from place to place. (4-PS3.2)

      • Energy can also be transferred from place to place by electric currents, which can then be used locally to produce motion, sound, heat, or light. The currents may have been produced to begin with by transforming the energy of motion into electrical energy. (4-PS3.2, 4)

  • PS3.C: Relationship Between Energy and Forces

    • • When objects collide, the contact forces transfer energy so as to change the objects’ motions. (4-PS3.3)

  • PS3.D: Energy in Chemical Processes and Everyday Life 

    • • The expression “produce energy” typically refers to the conversion of stored energy into a desired form for practical use. (4-PS3.4)

  • ETS1.A: Defining Engineering Problems

    • • Possible solutions to a problem are limited by available materials and resources (constraints). The success of a designed solution is determined by considering the desired features of a solution (criteria). Different proposals for solutions can be compared on the basis of how well each one meets the specified criteria for success or how well each takes the constraints into account. (Secondary to 4-PS3.4)

  • 4-PS4: Waves and their Applications in Technologies for Information Transfer

  • PS4.A: Wave Properties

    • • Waves, which are regular patterns of motion, can be made in water by disturbing the surface. When waves move across the surface of deep water, the water goes up and down in place; there is no net motion in the direction of the wave except when the water meets a beach. (4-PS4.1) 

      • Waves of the same type can differ in amplitude (height of the wave) and wavelength (spacing between wave peaks). (4-PS4.1)

  • PS4.B: Electromagnetic Radiation

    • • An object can be seen when light reflected from its surface enters the eyes. (4-PS4.2)

  • PS4.C: Information Technologies and Instrumentation

    • • Digitized information can be transmitted over long distances without significant degradation. High-tech devices, such as computers or cell phones, can receive and decode information—convert it from digitized form to voice—and vice versa. 

  • (4-PS4.3)

  • ETS1.C: Optimizing The Design Solution

    • • Different solutions need to be tested in order to determine which of them best solves the problem, given the criteria and the constraints. (Secondary to 4-PS4.3)

  • GLEs: SA.1; SB.1-3; SE.3

Performance Expectations:

Students who demonstrate understanding will:

• • 4-PS3.1: Use evidence to construct an explanation relating the speed of an object to the energy of that object. [Assessment Boundary: Assessment does not include quantitative measures of changes in the speed of an object or on any precise or quantitative definition of energy.]

  • 4-PS3.2: Make observations to provide evidence that energy can be transferred from place to place by sound, light, heat, and electric currents. [Assessment Boundary: Assessment does not include quantitative measurements of energy.] 

  • 4-PS3.3: Ask questions and predict outcomes about the changes in energy that occur when objects collide. 

    • • [Clarification Statement: Emphasis is on the change in the energy due to the change in speed, not on the forces, as objects interact.] [Assessment Boundary: Assessment does not include quantitative measurements of energy.]

  • 4-PS3.4: Apply scientific ideas to design, test, and refine a device that converts energy from one form to another.

    • • [Clarification Statement: Examples of devices could include electric circuits that convert electrical energy into motion energy of a vehicle, light, or sound; and, a passive solar heater that converts light into heat. Examples of constraints could include the materials, cost, or time to design the device.] [Assessment Boundary: Devices should be limited to those that convert motion energy to electric energy or use stored energy to cause motion or produce light or sound.]

  • 4-PS4.1: Develop a model of waves to describe patterns in terms of amplitude and wavelength and that waves can cause objects to move. 

    • • [Clarification Statement: Examples of models could include diagrams, analogies, and physical models using wire to illustrate wavelength and amplitude of waves.] [Assessment Boundary: Assessment does not include interference effects, electromagnetic waves, non-periodic waves, or quantitative models of amplitude and wavelength.] 

  • 4-PS4.2: Develop a model to describe that light reflecting from objects and entering the eye allows objects to be seen. [Assessment Boundary: Assessment does not include knowledge of specific colors reflected and seen, the cellular mechanisms of vision, or how the retina works.] 

  • 4-PS4.3: Generate and compare multiple solutions that use patterns to transfer information. [Clarification Statement: Examples of solutions could include drums sending coded information through sound waves, using a grid of 1’s and 0’s representing black and white to send information about a picture, and using Morse code to send text.]

Suggested Explorations:

• • Demonstrate how light travels with model.

  • Use frozen, saturated peat moss and a variety of coverings (e.g., leaves, snow, soil) to simulate how ground cover affects light absorption and reflection.

  • Research Aurora Borealis.

  • Design an experiment that investigates the effectiveness of different insulating and conducting materials.

  • Demonstrate how sound travels with a model.