The State of Things

States of Matter

Grades 6-8

Adding or removing thermal energy in a pure substance causes changes in the particles that can be modeled and predicted.

• Ask questions that arise from careful observation of phenomena, models, or unexpected results, to clarify and/or seek additional information.

• Ask questions to identify and/or clarify evidence and/or the premise(s) of an argument.

• Ask questions to determine the relationships between independent and dependent variables and relationships in models.

• Ask questions to clarify and/or refine a model, an explanation, or an engineering problem.

• Develop and/or use a model to predict and/or describe phenomena

• Develop a model to describe unobservable mechanisms.

• Develop and/or use a model to generate data to test ideas about phenomena in natural or designed systems, including those representing inputs and outputs, and those unobservable scales.

• Collect data to produce data to serve as the basis for evidence to answer scientific questions or test design solutions under a range of conditions.

• Collect data about the performance of a proposed object, tool, process or system under a range of conditions.

• Analyze and interpret data to provide evidence for phenomena.

• Constuct an explanation that includes qualitative or quantitative relationships between variables that predict(s) and/or describe(s) phenomena.

• Construct an explanation using models or representations.

• Constructa scientific explanation based on valid and reliable evidence obtained from sources (including the students' own experiments) and the assumption that theories and laws that describe the natural world operate today as they did in the past and will continue to do so in the future.

• Apply scientific ideas, principles, and/or evidence to construct, revise and/or use and explanation for realworld phenomena, examples, or events.

• Respectfully provide and receive critiques about one's explanations, procedures, models, and questions by citing relevant evidence and posing and responding to questions that elicit pertinent elaboration and detail.

• Construct, use, and/or present an oral and written argument supported by empirical evidence and scientific reasoning to support or refute an explanation or a model for a phenomenon or a solution to a problem.

• Critically read scientific texts adapted for classroom use to determine the central ideas and/or obtain scientific and/or technical information to describe patterns in and/or evidence about the natural and designed world(s).

• Communicate scientific and/or technical information (e.g., about a proposed object, tool, process, system) in writing and/or through oral presentations.

• Students classify relationships as causal or correlational and recognize that correlation does not necessarily imply causation. They use cause and effect relationships to predict phenomena in natural or designed systems. They also understand that phenomena may have more than one cause, and some cause and effect relationships in systems can only be described using probability.

• The fact that matter is composed of atoms and molecules can be used to explain the properties of substances, diversity of materials, states of matter, phase changes, and conservation of matter.