Learning Targets for the Year

These will be the 10 Learning Targets used to assess student learning this year:

• Use argument based on empirical evidence and scientific reasoning to support an explanation for how characteristic animal behaviors and specialized plant structures affect the probability of successful reproduction of animals and plants, respectively.

• Evaluate competing design solutions using a systematic process to determine how well they meet the criteria and constraints of the problem.

• Define the criteria and constraints of a design problem with sufficient precision to ensure a successful solution, taking into account relevant scientific principles and potential impacts on people and the natural environment that may limit possible solutions.

• Apply Newton’s Laws of Motion to design a solution to a problem involving the motion of two colliding objects and plan an investigation to provide evidence that the change in an object’s motion depends on the sum of the forces on the object and the mass of the object.

• Conduct an investigation and evaluate the experimental design to provide evidence that fields exist between objects exerting forces on each other even though the objects are not in contact.

• Construct and interpret graphical displays of data to describe the relationships of kinetic energy to the mass of an object and to the speed of an object.

• Develop and use a model to describe the role of gravity. Develop and use a  model to describe the role of gravity in the  motions within galaxies and the solar system.

• Gather and synthesize information about the technologies that have changed the way humans influence the inheritance of desired traits in organisms and manipulate the structure of substances to create new materials.

• Use mathematical representations to support explanations of how natural selection may lead to increases and decreases of specific traits in populations over time.

• Use mathematics and data to develop and use a model to describe that waves are reflect a model to describe that waves are reflected, absorbed, or transmitted through various materials.