Mr. Ghist's Science Page 

Platte Canyon High School
Bailey, Colorado

Science Standards

SCIENCE STANDARDS
6

BENCHMARKS: 

• evaluating print and visual media for scientific evidence, bias, or opinion

• demonstrating that the scientific way of knowing uses a critique and consensus process (for example, peer review, openness to criticism, logical arguments, skepticism)

• using graphs, equations, or other models to analyze systems involving change and constancy (for example, comparing the geologic time scale to shorter time frames)

• analyzing and comparing models of cyclic change as used within and among scientific disciplines (for example, water cycle, circular motion, sound waves, weather cycles)

• identifying and predicting cause-effect relationships within a system (for example, the effect of temperature on gas volume, effect of carbon dioxide level on the greenhouse effect, effects of changing nutrients at the base of a food pyramid)

• identifying and describing the dynamics of natural systems (for example, weather systems, ecological systems, body systems, systems at dynamic equilibrium)

• identifying and testing a model to analyze systems involving change and constancy (for example, a mathematical expression for gas behavior; constructing a closed ecosystem such as an aquarium)

• explaining an exponential model (for example, pH scale, population growth, Richter scale)

• refining a hypothesis based on an accumulation of data over time (for example, Alvarez's theory on the extinction of dinosaurs)

Guiding questions:

· How do scientists decide what to believe?

· How is science related to other ways of knowing?

· How have people of diverse cultures contributed to and influenced developments in science?

Expectations:

evaluate print and visual media for scientific evidence, bias, or opinion

identify, discuss, and respond to information from credible sources (e.g. scientists making claims in their areas of expertise and from sources of questionable credibility)

explain that the scientific way of knowing involves a critique and consensus process (e.g. peer review, openness to criticism, logical arguments)

understand that no matter how well one theory fits observations, a new theory might fit them as well or better, or might fit a wider range of observations, because in science, the testing, revising, and occasional discarding of theories new and old, never ends and leads to an increasingly better understanding of how things work in the world, but not to absolute truth

know that from time to time, major shifts occur in the scientific view of how the world works but that more often, the changes take place in the body of scientific knowledge are small modifications of prior knowledge

use graphs, equations, or other models to analyze systems involving change and constancy

analyze and compare models of cyclic change as used within and among scientific disciplines

identify and predict cause and effect relationships within a system

identify and describe the dynamics of a natural system

identify and test a model to analyze systems involving change and constancy

explain an exponential model (e.g. pH, Richter scale)

refine a hypothesis based on accumulation of data over time