In this unit, students use what they know about the relationship between energy and matter to investigate phenomena of how energy powers the cycling of Earth materials. They begin with this lesson on modeling the Earth processes that form different kinds of rock. This page provides an overview of this lesson.
In this unit, students explore phenomena of natural processes that cause Earth’s surface to change over time, analyzing how energy causes Earth’s matter to transform and cycle from one form to another. In this lesson, students investigate how Earth materials are continually being reshaped and reformed by multiple processes that are powered by energy from Earth’s hot interior and the sun. This page is a high-level extract of this lesson.
In this unit, students explore the natural processes that cause Earth’s surface to change over time, analyzing how energy causes Earth’s matter to transform and cycle from one form to another. In this lesson, they trace phenomena of how energy is transferred in chemical reactions, which allows scientists to produce ethanol to use as an alternative energy source. This page showcases each component of this lesson.
In the last unit, students explore how objects can be seen when they are illuminated by a source of light and how light passes through opaque, transparent, and translucent materials differently. In this unit, students apply what they have learned about light and sound to design a solution that can be used to communicate over a distance.
In this unit, students explore the relationship between matter and energy using the phenomenon of material properties to discover why certain materials are useful for a particular function. For this lesson, they focus on the role of energy in changing matter during a chemical reaction phenomena between two substances. This page is a high-level extract of this lesson.
In the last unit, students explored how shelters help animals survive in their environment. In this unit, students investigate the relationship between forces and motion, building propeller cars to observe action-reaction forces, the relationship between the distance their car travels and the amount of force applied, and how friction affects motion.
In this unit, students use the phenomenon of why certain materials (such as the materials that make up a baseball) are useful for a particular function to explore the relationship between matter and energy phenomena. In this lesson students manipulate the properties of a polymer bouncy ball by changing the amounts of reactants in a chemical reaction. This page highlights parts of this lesson.
In this unit, students explore the vastness and mysteriousness of the universe, exploring how the Earth-sun-moon system fits into solar system phenomena and the Milky Way Galaxy. In this lesson they evaluate phenomena related to gravity’s role in forming the solar system and how mass and gravity determine weight on other planets. This page showcases key elements in this lesson.
In this unit, students apply what they have previously learned about forces, motion, and matter to the solar system, focusing on the phenomena of gravity’s role in the universe. In this lesson, students engineer a solution to collisions between moving objects in space. This page is a high-level extract of this lesson.
In this unit, students analyze the phenomenon of our sun as the primary source of energy on Earth. In this lesson, students explore how the sun’s uneven heating of the planet drives weather phenomena and climate phenomena, which result from complex interactions within Earth’s systems. This page is an extract from parts of this lesson.
In this unit, students evaluate how Earth is heated unevenly by investigating how the angle that the sun’s rays hit Earth affects temperatures at different locations. In this lesson, students use their scientific knowledge of phenomena related to global warming and climate to engineer a model greenhouse that reaches a specific temperature. This pages provides a snapshot of this lesson.
Standards citation: NGSS Lead States. 2013. Next Generation Science Standards: For States, By States. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. Neither WestEd nor the lead states and partners that developed the Next Generation Science Standards were involved in the production of this product, and do not endorse it.