North Carolina K–6 science standards

Analyze and interpret data to compare changes in the environment due to weather.

Use mathematics and computational thinking to summarize daily weather conditions noting changes that occur from day to day and throughout the year.

Obtain, evaluate and communicate information to compare weather patterns that occur from season to season.

Engage in argument from evidence to summarize the characteristics of living organisms and nonliving things in terms of their: structure, growth, changes, movement, basic needs.

Use models to exemplify how animals use their body parts to obtain food and other resources, protect themselves, and move from place to place.

Analyze and interpret data to compare the characteristics of different types of the same animal to determine individual similarities and differences.

Analyze and interpret data to compare the characteristics of different types of the same plant to determine individual similarities and differences.

Analyze and interpret data to classify objects by physical properties (size, color, shape, texture, weight and flexibility).

Engage in argument from evidence to summarize how different materials (clay, wood, cloth, paper, etc.) are used based on their physical properties.

Use models to compare the relative position of various objects observed in the classroom and outside using position words such as: in front of, behind, between, on top of, under, above, below, beside.

Carry out investigations to illustrate different ways objects and organisms move (to include falling to the ground when dropped): straight, zigzag, round and round, back and forth, fast and slow.

Use models to recognize differences in the features of the day and night sky and apparent movement of objects across the sky as observed from Earth.

Analyze and interpret data to recognize patterns of observable changes in the moon’s appearance from day to day.

Obtain, evaluate and communicate information to summarize the physical properties of Earth materials, including rocks, minerals, soils, and water.

Carry out investigations to compare the properties of different soil samples from local places relating their capacity to retain water, provide nutrients, and support the growth of plants.

Obtain, evaluate and communicate information to summarize ways in which humans use natural resources.

Engage in argument from evidence to explain ways that humans can protect natural resources in the environment.

Obtain, evaluate and communicate information to summarize the needs of different plants and animals.

Analyze and interpret data to compare how the needs of plants and animals can be met in different environments.

Use models to explain the effect of a push or pull on the motion of an object, with or without contact.

Carry out investigations to compare the effects of a given force on the motion of an object.

Obtain, evaluate, and communicate information to summarize how energy from the sun serves as a source of light and warms the land, air, and water.

Use mathematics and computational thinking to summarize weather conditions (temperature, wind direction, wind speed, precipitation).

Carry out investigations to collect data and compare weather patterns that occur over time and relate observable patterns to time of day and time of year.

Obtain, evaluate and communicate information to recognize the tools scientists use for observing, recording, and predicting weather changes from day to day and during the season.

Use models to summarize the life cycle of animals including: birth, developing into an adult, reproducing, aging and death.

Obtain, evaluate and communicate information to compare life cycles of different animals.

Obtain, evaluate, and communicate information to summarize ways in which animals closely resemble their parents and ways they are different.

Analyze and interpret data to illustrate variations among offspring of the same parents.

Carry out investigations to illustrate examples of matter that can change from a solid to a liquid and from a liquid to a solid by heating and cooling.

Analyze and interpret data to compare the amount (volume and weight) of water in a container before and after freezing.

Analyze and interpret data to compare the amount (volume and weight) of water left in an open container over time to the water left in a closed container.

Carry out investigations to illustrate how sound is produced by vibrating objects and columns of air.

Use models to summarize the relationship between sound and how sounds are produced and detected by parts of the body that vibrate.

Use models to recognize that the Earth is part of a system called the solar system that includes the sun (a star), planets, and many moons, and that the Earth is the third planet from the sun.

Carry out investigations to recognize that changes in the length and direction of an object's shadow indicate the apparent changing position of the sun during the day.

Obtain, evaluate and communicate information to recognize the patterns of the stars (including the sun) stay the same as they appear to move across the sky.

Use models to compare Earth's saltwater and freshwater features (including oceans, seas, rivers, lakes, ponds, streams, and glaciers).

Use models to compare Earth's land features (including volcanoes, mountains, valleys, canyons, caverns, and islands).

Use models to infer the functions of the skeletal and muscular systems.

Obtain, evaluate, and communicate scientific information to explain why skin is necessary for protection and for the body to remain healthy.

Carry out investigations to explain the structures and functions of plants and how they are essential for life.

Use models to exemplify the distinct stages of the life cycle of seed plants.

Carry out investigations to explain how environmental conditions determine how well plants survive and grow.

Construct an explanation to infer how the basic properties and components of soil determine its ability to support the growth and survival of many plants.

Engage in argument from evidence to infer that air is a substance that surrounds us, takes up space, and has mass.

Carry out investigations to classify solids, liquids, and gases based on their basic properties.

Engage in argument from evidence to explain observable changes to the properties of matter when heated or cooled.

Carry out investigations to infer changes in speed or direction resulting from forces acting on an object.

Carry out investigations to compare the relative speeds (faster or slower) of objects that travel the same distance in different amounts of time.

Use models to explain the effect of Earth's gravity on the motion of any object on or near the Earth.

Ask questions to explain how heat is created by friction.

Carry out investigations to explain how energy can be transferred from a warmer object to a cooler one by contact or at a distance.

Use models to explain the cause of day and night based on the rotation of the Earth on its axis.

Use models to explain the repeating pattern of the phases of the moon (new, crescent, quarter, gibbous, and full).

Carry out investigations to classify minerals using tests for the physical properties of hardness, color, luster, cleavage and streak.

Carry out investigations to classify rocks as metamorphic, sedimentary, or igneous based on their composition, how they are formed, and the processes that create them.

Use models to explain changes in Earth's surface over time (to include slow changes of erosion and weathering, and fast changes of earthquakes, landslides, and volcanic activity).

Ask questions to infer whether changes in an organism's environment are beneficial or harmful.

Engage in argument from evidence to explain how humans can adapt their behavior to live in changing environments (e.g. recycling wastes, establishing rain gardens, planting native species to prevent flooding and erosion).

Obtain, evaluate and communicate information to compare solutions to environmental problems impacting plants and animals.

Use models to explain that plants and animals have external structures that function to support survival.

Use models to explain that animals receive different types of information through their senses, process the information, and respond to the information in different ways.

Engage in argument from evidence to explain how differences among animals of the same population sometimes gives individuals an advantage in surviving and reproducing in changing habitats.

Analyze and interpret data to compare fossils to one another and living organisms.

Analyze and interpret data to explain how fossils suggest ideas about Earth's early environment.

Ask questions to summarize the relationship of magnetic interactions between two objects not in contact with each other.

Carry out investigations to explain how electrically charged objects push or pull on other objects to produce motion.

Ask questions to identify basic forms of energy (light, sound, heat, and electrical) that cause motion or create change.

Use models to explain a simple electrical circuit and the necessary components.

Carry out investigations on common materials to classify them as insulators or conductors of electricity.

Carry out investigations to infer the path light travels from a light source to a mirror and how it is reflected (by the mirror) using different angles.

Carry out investigations to explain how light is refracted and absorbed.

Analyze and interpret data to compare daily and seasonal changes in weather conditions (including wind speed and direction, precipitation, and temperature) and patterns.

Analyze and interpret weather data to explain current and upcoming weather conditions (including severe weather such as hurricanes and tornadoes) in a given location.

Construct an explanation to summarize the ocean's influences on weather and climate in North Carolina.

Use models to explain how the sun’s energy drives the processes of the water cycle (including evaporation, transpiration, condensation, precipitation).

Use models to recognize the organizational structure of humans as a multicellular organism (cell, tissue, organ, system, organism).

Use models to compare the major systems of the human body (digestive, respiratory, circulatory, muscular, skeletal, nervous) as it relates to their functions necessary for life.

Engage in argument from evidence to compare the characteristics of several common ecosystems (including estuaries and salt marshes, oceans, lakes and ponds, rivers and streams, forests, and grasslands) in terms of their ability to support a variety of populations.

Use models to classify organisms within an ecosystem according to the function they serve: producers, consumers, or decomposers .

Use models to infer the effects that may result from the interconnected relationships of plants and animals to their ecosystem.

Ask questions to compare instincts and learned behaviors.

Ask questions to compare inherited and acquired traits.

Carry out investigations to compare the weight of objects before and after an interaction.

Carry out investigations to explain whether the mixing of two or more substances results in new substances.

Carry out investigations to compare how heating and cooling affect some materials and how this relates to their purpose and practical applications.

Carry out investigations to explain how factors such as gravity, friction, and change in mass affect the motion of objects.

Use mathematics and computational thinking to infer the motion of an object (including position, direction, and speed).

Use models to explain how the relative motion and relative position of the Sun, Earth and moon affect the seasons, tides, phases of the moon, and eclipses.

Analyze and interpret data to compare the planets in our solar system in terms of: size and gravitational force relative to Earth, surface and atmospheric features, relative distance from the sun, and ability to support life.

Use models to explain how the gravitational forces of the Sun and planets impact the structure of our solar system.

Analyze and interpret data from historical and ongoing space exploration to illustrate the size and scale of the components of our solar system, galaxy, and universe.

Use models to summarize the structure of the earth, including the layers, the mantle and core based on the relative position, composition and density.

Construct an explanation to illustrate how the movement of lithospheric plates can create geologic landforms and cause major geologic events such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

Use models to explain the rock cycle and its relationship to the formation of soil (including how different types of soil come from different types of rocks).

Engage in argument from evidence to explain that the good health of humans and the environment requires: monitoring of the lithosphere, maintaining soil quality and stewardship.

Obtain, evaluate, and communicate information to compare the implications of sustainable and unsustainable land use practices (including agriculture and deforestation) and the importance of stewardship.

Use models to explain how the processes of photosynthesis, respiration, and transpiration work together to meet the needs of plants.

Construct an explanation to compare how vascular and nonvascular plants obtain, transport, and use nutrients and water necessary for survival.

Use models to summarize structural adaptations, processes, and responses that flowering plants use for defense, survival and reproduction.

Use models to summarize how energy derived from the sun is used by plants to produce sugars (photosynthesis) and is transferred to consumers and decomposers.

Analyze and interpret data to predict how the abiotic factors (such as temperature, water, sunlight, and soil quality) and biotic factors affect the ability of organisms to grow and survive in different biomes (freshwater, marine, temperate forest, rainforest, grassland, desert, taiga, tundra).

Use models to illustrate that matter is made of atoms and elements, and are distinguished from each other by the types of atoms that compose them.

Use models to explain the relationship between changes in thermal energy in a substance and the motion of its particles (including phase changes).

Carry out investigations to compare the physical properties of pure substances that are independent of the amount of matter present including density, melting point, boiling point and solubility to properties that are dependent on the amount of matter present to include volume, mass and weight.

Use models to compare the directional transfer of heat energy of matter through convection, radiation, and conduction.

Use models to explain how the transfer of heat and resulting change of temperature impacts the behavior of matter to include expansion, and contraction.

Carry out investigations to compare the transfer of thermal energy in insulated and non-insulated materials (examples could include insulated box, solar cooker, or styrofoam cup).

Engage in argument from evidence to classify materials as conductors and insulators of energy (both thermal and electrical).

Carry out investigations to explain the transfer of electrical energy in electrical circuits, to include how a circuit requires a complete loop through which an electrical current can pass.

Use models of a simple wave to explain wave properties in seismic, light, and sound waves that include: waves having a repeating pattern with a specific amplitude, frequency, and wavelength, and the amplitude of a wave is related to the energy of the wave.

Carry out investigations to conclude the relationship between the electromagnetic spectrum (including visible light) and sight.

Carry out investigations to conclude the relationship between sound waves (including rate of vibration, the medium through which vibrations travel) and hearing.

Use models to explain that various waves (seismic, sound, electromagnetic, including visible light) are reflected, absorbed or transmitted through various materials.