California standards:
Grade 6:
Heat (Thermal Energy) (Physical Science)
Heat moves in a predictable flow from warmer objects to cooler objects until all the objects are at the same temperature. As a basis for understanding this concept:
•	Students know energy can be carried from one place to another by heat flow or by waves, including water, light and sound waves or by moving objects.
•	Students know heat energy is also transferred between objects by radiation (radiation can travel though space).
Energy in the Earth System
Many phenomena on Earth’s surface are affected by the transfer of energy through radiation and convection currents. As a basis for understanding this concept:
•	Students know solar energy reaches Earth though radiation, mostly in the form of visible light.
Investigation and Experimentation
Science progress is made by asking meaningful questions and conducting careful investigations. As a basis for understanding this concept and addressing the content in the other three strands, students will:
•	Select and use appropriate tools and technology (including calculators, computers, balances, spring scales, microscopes, and binoculars) to perform tests, collect data, and display data.
•	Construct appropriate graphs from data and develop qualitative statements about the relationship between variables.
•	Recognize whether evidence is consistent with a proposed explanation.
•	Identify changes in natural phenomena over time without manipulating the phenomena (e.g., a tree limb, a grove of trees, a stream, a hillslope).
Grade 7:
Earth and Life History
 Evidence from rocks allows us to understand the evolution of life on Earth. As a basis for understanding this concept:
•	Students know that evidence from geologic layers and radioactive dating indicates Earth is approximately 4.6 billion years old and that life on this planet has existed from more than 3 billion years.
Physical Principles in Living Systems (Physical Sciences) 
Physical principles underlie biological structures and functions. As a basis for understanding this concept:
•	Students know visible light is a small band within a very broad electromagnetic spectrum
•	Students know that for an object to be seen, light must be emitted by or scattered from it and detected by the eye
•	Students know that white light is a mixture of many wavelengths (colors) and that retinal cells react differently to different wavelengths.
Investigation and Experimentation
Science progress is made by asking meaningful questions and conducting careful investigations. As a basis for understanding this concept and addressing the content in the other three strands, students will:
•	Select and use appropriate tools and technology (including calculators, computers, balances, spring scales, microscopes, and binoculars) to perform tests, collect and display data.

Grade 8:
Forces
Unbalanced forces cause changes in velocity. As a basis for understanding this concept:
•	Students identify separately the two or more forces that are acting on a single static object, including gravity, elastic forces due to tension or compression
•	Students know the role of gravity in forming and maintaining the shapes of planets, stars, and the solar system
Earth in the Solar System (Earth Sciences)
The structures and composition of the universe can be learned from studying stars and galaxies and their evolution. As a basis for understanding this concept:
•	Students know galaxies are clusters of billions of stars and may have different shapes.
•	Students know that the sun is one of many stars in the Milky Way galaxy and that stars may differ in size, temperature, and color.
•	Students know how to use astronomical units and light years as measures of distances between the Sun, stars, and Earth.
Investigation and Experimentation
•	Scientific progress is made by asking meaningful questions and conducting careful investigations. As a basis for understanding this concept and addressing the content in the other three strands, students should develop their own questions and perform investigations. Students will:
•	Recognize the slope of the linear graph as the constant relationship y = kx and apply this principle in interpreting graphs constructed from data.
•	Construct appropriate graphs from data and develop quantitative statements about the relationships between variables.
•	Apply simple mathematic relationships to determine a missing quantity in a mathematic expression, given the two remaining terms (including speed = distance / time, density = mass / volume, force = pressure x area, volume = area x height).
Grades 9 –12
Physics:
Motion and Forces 
Newton’s laws predict the motion of most objects. As a basis for understanding this concept:
•	Students know the relationship between the universal law of gravitation and the effect of gravity on an object at the surface of the earth.
•	Students know how to solve problems involving the forces between two electric charges at a distance (Coulomb’s law) or the forces between two masses at a distance (universal gravitation).
Waves
Waves have characteristic properties that do not depend on the type of wave. As a basis for understanding this concept:
•	Students know radio waves, light, and X – Rays are different wavelength bands in the spectrum of electromagnetic waves whose speed in a vacuum is approximately 3x10^8 m/s (186,00 miles/second).
•	Students know how to identify the characteristic properties of waves: interference (beats), diffraction, refraction, Doppler effect, and polarization.
Earth Science:
Earth’s Place in the Universe
•	Astronomy and planetary exploration reveal the solar system’s structure, scale, and change over time. As a basis for understanding this concept:
o	Students know the evidence from Earth and moon rocks indicate s that the solar   	
o	system was formed from a nebular cloud of dust and gas approximately 4.6 billion  
o	years ago. 
•	Earth – based and space – based astronomy reveal the structure, scale, and changes in stars, galaxies, and the universe over time, As a basis for understanding this concept:
•	Students know the solar system is located in an outer edge of the disc – shaped Milky – Way galaxy, which spans 100,000 light years. 
•	Students know galaxies are made of billions of stars and comprise most of the visible mass of the universe.
•	Students know how the red – shift from distant galaxies and the cosmic background radiation provide evidence for the “big bang” model that suggests that the universe has been expanding for 10 – 20 billion years.
Investigation and Experimentation
•	Scientific progress is made by asking meaningful questions and conducting careful investigations. As a basis for understanding this concept and addressing the content in the other four strands, students should develop their own questions and perform investigations. Students will:
•	Select and use appropriate tools and technology (such as computer – linked probes, spreadsheets, and graphing calculators) to perform tests, collect data, analyze relationships, and display data.
•	Formulate explanations by using logic and evidence.
•	Know that when an observation does not agree with an accepted scientific theory, the observation is sometimes mistaken or fraudulent (e.g. Piltdown Man fossil or unidentified flying objects) and that the theory is sometimes wrong (e.g., the Ptolemaic model of the movement of the Sun, Moon, and planets).