Matter cycles through a balanced ecosystem by producers, consumers, and decomposers.

• Ask questions about what would happen if a variable is changed.

• Ask questions that can be investigated and predict reasonable outcomes based on patterns such as cause and effect relationships.

• Collaboratively develop and/or revise a model based on evidence that shows the relationships among variables for frequent and regular occurring events.

• Develop and/or use models to describe and/or predict phenomena.

• Use a model to test cause and effect relationships or interactions concering the functioning of natural or designed system.

• Make predictions about what would happen if a variable changes.

• Compare and contrast data collected by different groups in order to discuss similarities and differences in their findings.

• Analyze data to refine a problem statement or the design of a proposed object, tool, or process.

• Use evidence (e.g., measurements, observations, patterns) to construct or support an explanation or design a solution to a problem.

• Respectfuly provide and receive critiques from peers about a proposed procedure, explanation, or model by citing relevant evidence and posing specific questions.

• Construct and/or support an argument with evidence, data, and/or a model.

• Read and comprehend grade appropriate complex texts and/or other reliable media to summarize and obtain scientific and technical ideas and describe how they are supported by evidence.

• Obtain and combine information from books and/or other reliable media to explain phenomena or solutions to a design problem.

• Students understand that a system is a group of related parts that make up a whole and can carry out functions its individual parts cannot. They can also describe a system in terms of its components and their interactions.

• Students learn matter is made of particles and energy can be transferred in various ways and between objects. Students observe the conservation of matter by tracking matter flows and cycles before and after processes and recognizing the total weight of substances does not change.

• Matter cycles between the air and soil and among organisms as they live and die.

• When the environment changes some organisms survive and reproduce, some move to new locations, some move into transformed environment, and some die.

• The food of almost any animal can be traced back to plants. Organisms are related in food webs in which some animals eat plants for food and other animals eat the animals that eat plants, while decomposers restore some materials back to the soil.