ME.A. Unifying Themes: Students apply the principles of systems, models, constancy and change, and scale in science and technology.

A.2. Models: Students use models to examine a variety of real-world phenomena from the physical setting, the living environment, and the technological world and compare advantages and disadvantages of various models.

A.2.a. Compare different types of models that can be used to represent the same thing (including models of chemical reactions, motion, or cells) in order to match the purpose and complexity of a model to its use.

A.2.b. Propose changes to models and explain how those changes may better reflect the real thing.

A.3. Constancy and Change: Students describe how patterns of change vary in physical, biological, and technological systems.

A.3.b. Give examples of systems including ecosystems, Earth systems, and technologies that appear to be unchanging (even though things may be changing within the system) and identify any feedback mechanisms that may be modifying the changes.

ME.B. The Skills and Traits of Scientific Inquiry and Technological Design: Students plan, conduct, analyze data from and communicate results of in-depth scientific investigations; and they use a systematic process, tools, equipment, and a variety of materials to create a technological design and produce a solution or product to meet a specified need.

B.1. Skills and Traits of Scientific Inquiry: Students plan, conduct, analyze data from, and communicate results of investigations, including simple experiments.

B.1.b. Design and safely conduct scientific investigations including experiments with controlled variables.

B.1.c. Use appropriate tools, metric units, and techniques to gather, analyze, and interpret data.

B.1.e. Use logic, critical reasoning and evidence to develop descriptions, explanations, predictions, and models.

ME.C. The Scientific and Technological Enterprise: Students understand the history and nature of scientific knowledge and technology, the processes of inquiry and technological design, and the impacts science and technology have on society and the environment.

C.1. Understandings of Inquiry: Students describe how scientists use varied and systematic approaches to investigations that may lead to further investigations.

C.1.b. Explain why it is important to identify and control variables and replicate trials in experiments.

ME.D. The Physical Setting: Students understand the universal nature of matter, energy, force, and motion and identify how these relationships are exhibited in Earth Systems, in the solar system, and throughout the universe.

D.1. Universe and Solar System: Students explain the movements and describe the location, composition, and characteristics of our solar system and universe, including planets, the sun, and galaxies.

D.1.a. Describe the different kinds of objects in the solar system including planets, sun, moons, asteroids, and comets.

D.1.b. Explain the motions that cause days, years, phases of the moon, and eclipses.

D.1.c. Describe the location of our solar system in its galaxy and explain that other galaxies exist and that they include stars and planets.

D.2. Earth: Students describe the various cycles, physical and biological forces and processes, position in space, energy transformations, and human actions that affect the short- term and long-term changes to the Earth.

D.2.a. Explain how the tilt of Earth's rotational axis relative to the plane of its yearly orbit around the sun affects the day length and sunlight intensity to cause seasons.

D.2.b. Describe Earth Systems - biosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere and lithosphere - and cycles and interactions within them (including water moving among and between them, rocks forming and transforming, and weather formation).

D.2.c. Give several reasons why the climate is different in different regions of the Earth.

D.2.d. Describe significant Earth resources and how their limited supply affects how they are used.

D.2.f. Give examples of abrupt changes and slow changes in Earth Systems.

D.3. Matter and Energy: Students describe physical and chemical properties of matter, interactions and changes in matter, and transfer of energy through matter.

D.3.a. Describe that all matter is made up of atoms and distinguish between/among elements, atoms, and molecules.

D.3.c. Describe the difference between physical and chemical change.

D.3.e. Explain how atoms are packed together in arrangements that compose all substances including elements, compounds, mixtures, and solutions.

D.3.f. Explain and apply the understanding that substances have characteristic properties, including density, boiling point, and solubility and these properties are not dependent on the amount of matter present.

D.3.h. Describe several different types of energy forms including heat energy, chemical energy, and mechanical energy.

D.3.j. Describe how heat is transferred from one object to another by conduction, convection, and/or radiation.

ME.E. The Living Environment: Students understand that cells are the basic unit of life, that all life as we know it has evolved through genetic transfer and natural selection to create a great diversity of organisms, and that these organisms create interdependent webs through which matter and energy flow. Students understand similarities and differences between humans and other organisms and the interconnections of these interdependent webs.

E.1. Biodiversity: Students differentiate among organisms based on biological characteristics and identify patterns of similarity.

E.1.a. Compare physical characteristics that differentiate organisms into groups (including plants that use sunlight to make their own food, animals that consume energy-rich food, and organisms that cannot easily be classified as either).

E.1.b. Explain how biologists use internal and external anatomical features to determine relatedness among organisms and to form the basis for classification systems.

E.1.d. Describe how external and internal structures of animals and plants contribute to the variety of ways organisms are able to find food and reproduce.

E.2. Ecosystems: Students examine how the characteristics of the physical, non-living (abiotic) environment, the types and behaviors of living (biotic) organisms, and the flow of matter and energy affect organisms and the ecosystem of which they are part.

E.2.a. List various kinds of resources within different biomes for which organisms compete.

E.2.b. Describe ways in which two types of organisms may interact (including competition, predator/prey, producer/consumer/decomposer, parasitism, and mutualism) and describe the positive and negative consequences of such interactions.

E.2.c. Describe the source and flow of energy in the two major food webs, terrestrial and marine.

E.2.d. Describe how matter and energy change from one form to another in living things and in the physical environment.

E.3. Cells: Students describe the hierarchy of organization and function in organisms, and the similarities and differences in structure, function, and needs among and within organisms.

E.3.b. Explain the relationship among cells, tissues, organs, and organ systems, including how tissues and organs serve the needs of cells and organisms.

E.3.c. Compare the structures, systems, and interactions that allow single-celled organisms and multi-celled plants and animals, including humans, to defend themselves, acquire and use energy, self-regulate, reproduce, and coordinate movement.

E.5. Evolution: Students describe the evidence that evolution occurs over many generations, allowing species to acquire many of their unique characteristics or adaptations.

E.5.d. Explain that new varieties of cultivated plants and domestic animals can be developed through genetic modification and describe the impacts of the new varieties of plants and animals.

ME.CC.RST.6-8. Reading Standards for Literacy in Science and Technical Subjects

Integration of Knowledge and Ideas

RST.6-8.7. Integrate quantitative or technical information expressed in words in a text with a version of that information expressed visually (e.g., in a flowchart, diagram, model, graph, or table).

ME.CC.WHST.6-8. Writing Standards for Literacy in Science and Technical Subjects

Text Types and Purposes

WHST.6-8.1. Write arguments focused on discipline-specific content.

WHST.6-8.1(e) Provide a concluding statement or section that follows from and supports the argument presented.

WHST.6-8.2. Write informative/explanatory texts, including the narration of historical events, scientific procedures/ experiments, or technical processes.

WHST.6-8.2(d) Use precise language and domain-specific vocabulary to inform about or explain the topic.

WHST.6-8.2(f) Provide a concluding statement or section that follows from and supports the information or explanation presented.

Production and Distribution of Writing

WHST.6-8.4. Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.