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Course Overview
Grade 7 Science focuses on Life Science Standards and Science and Engineering practices from the Massachusetts Science Technology and Engineering Frameworks. Major topics include living things, cells and cell processes, genetics, evolution, and ecology.
Living Things
Learning Targets
Learning Targets
Identify the six characteristics of living things.
Identify four needs of living things.
Explain and provide evidence on how living things are organized.
Relate how the process of homeostasis is evident in everyday life.
Classify organisms based on their characteristics.
Provide an argument on whether viruses are living or non living
Essential Questions
Essential Questions
Are viruses considered living?
Why has the classification of organisms changed over time?
Instructional Snapshot
Instructional Snapshot
Students will:
Use observations and information to classify organisms as non living or living.
Classify organisms into different groups of living things based on characteristics.
Cells
Learning Targets
Learning Targets
Use evidence to explain that all organisms are made of cells.
Model the parts of the cell and describe how they function.
Essential Questions
Essential Questions
How is the structure of cells related to their functions?
How do organelles help a cell function?
How can something microscopic be living and have a large influence on the world?
Instructional Snapshot
Instructional Snapshot
Students will:
Examine microorganisms, plant, and animal cells using microscopes.
Design a model of plant and animal cell organelles.
Cell Processes
Learning Targets
Learning Targets
Compare and contrast active and passive transport.
Distinguish between diffusion and facilitated diffusion.
Model how photosynthesis and cellular respiration are opposite chemical reactions.
Create and carry out an experiment to show the process of osmosis.
Use data to construct an argument for the occurrence of diffusion and/or osmosis.
Essential Questions
Essential Questions
How do particles move through a cell membrane?
How does a plant use the sun’s energy for food?
How do cells get the energy to survive?
How does photosynthesis relate to cellular respiration?
Instructional Snapshot
Instructional Snapshot
Students will:
Design experiments and investigate how cells move materials in and out of membranes.
Model chemical equations of the relationship between cellular respiration and photosynthesis
Carry out scientific explorations of photosynthesis, cellular respiration, and fermentation.
Collect and interpret data sets from scientific explorations.
Genetics
Learning Targets
Learning Targets
Explain the relationship between DNA, chromosomes, genes, and traits.
Compare and contrast sexual and asexual reproduction.
Explain the relationship of genotype to phenotype.
Utilize a Punnett square to demonstrate an understanding of Mendelian genetics.
Identify the steps of transcription and translation in the process of protein synthesis.
Essential Questions
Essential Questions
How does DNA work as the mechanism through which organisms transmit genetic information?
Why do individuals of the same species vary in how they look/function?
How and when should we use the knowledege of genetics and genetic engineering?
Instructional Snapshot
Instructional Snapshot
Students will:
Use models to show the processes of fertilization and the passing on of traits from parent to offspring.
Explain how DNA works to produce traits.
Evolution
Learning Targets
Learning Targets
Explain how changes in the environment can lead to evolution or extinction of species.
Construct an explanation based on evidence that individuals with certain inherited traits have a higher probability of surviving and reproducing, which increases the frequency of those traits within a population over time.
Use a model to describe that in artificial selection humans choose to breed certain plants or animals based on desired characteristics that they want to be passed to offspring.
Compare and contrast natural selection and artificial selection.
Describe benefits of artificial selection, such as desired traits appearing more frequently in a population of crops, and compare those benefits to drawbacks, such as increasing the likelihood of genetic diseases.
Essential Questions
Essential Questions
How are fossils useful in developing an understanding of the Theory of Evolution?
How has our knowledge of evolution helped us to understand all aspects of biology?
What genetic advances are being explored and developed?
How have the interactions between environmental and human factors contributed to genetic variation among species?
Instructional Snapshot
Instructional Snapshot
Students will:
Explain evidence of evolution using observations, fossil records, and real life examples.
Explain how environmental factors could affect the survival of a species or variation of species though the Natural Selection Storyboards.
Ecology
Learning Targets
Learning Targets
Describe how energy flows through/in an ecosystem including photosynthesis, cellular respiration, and relationships between, producers, consumers and decomposers.
Describe how relationships between organisms may be predatory, competitive, parasitic, or mutually or non-mutually beneficial.
Explain and provide evidence for how disruptions to an ecosystem cause changes to populations.
Essential Questions
Essential Questions
What is the relationship between biotic and abiotic factors in an ecosystem?
What are possible relationships organisms form with other organisms in their ecosystems in order to survive?
How do symbiotic relationships ensure survival of the species?
Instructional Snapshot
Instructional Snapshot
Students will:
Observe their local ecosystem, model food webs, and analyze data from an ecosystem to describe how disruptions to an ecosystem can cause population shifts.
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