1. EdGCM Correlations to National Science Education Standards - Science Content Standards (High School)

CONTENT STANDARD A:

As a result of activities in grades 9-12, all students should develop understanding of

•  Abilities necessary to do scientific inquiry
•  Understandings about scientific inquiry

EdGCM ACTIVITIES IN SUPPORT OF CONTENT STANDARD A:

• Students actively participate in scientific investigations, and use the cognitive and manipulative skills associated with the formulation of scientific explanations.

• EdGCM investigations are meaningful to students. They are derived from current questions and issues that impact the lives of all people around the globe.

• Students use computers for the analysis and display of data in a variety of formats.

• Students formulate and revise scientific explanations and models using logic and evidence

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CONTENT STANDARD B:

As a result of their activities in grades 9-12, all students should develop understanding of

•  Structure and properties of matter
•  Motions and forces
•  Chemical reactions
•  Conservation of energy and increase in disorder
•  Interactions of energy and matter

AS A RESULT OF EdGCM ACTIVITIES STUDENTS SHOULD DEVELOP THESE UNDERSTANDINGS OUTLINED IN CONTENT STANDARD B:

• Chemical reactions may release or consume energy. Some reactions such as the burning of fossil fuels release large amounts of energy by losing heat and by emitting light. Light can initiate many chemical reactions such as photosynthesis and the evolution of urban smog.

• In some chemical reactions, chemical bonds are broken by heat or light to form very reactive radicals with electrons ready to form new bonds. Radical reactions control many processes such as the presence of ozone and greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, burning and processing of fossil fuels, the formation of polymers, and explosions.
  

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CONTENT STANDARD C:

As a result of their activities in grades 9-12, all students should develop understanding characteristics of

• The cell
• Matter, energy, and organization in living systems
• Behavior of organisms

AS A RESULT OF EdGCM ACTIVITIES STUDENTS SHOULD DEVELOP THESE UNDERSTANDINGS OUTLINED IN CONTENT STANDARD C:

• Plant cells contain chloroplasts, the site of photo-synthesis. Plants and many microorganisms use solar energy to combine molecules of carbon dioxide and water into complex, energy rich organic compounds and release oxygen to the environment. This process of photosynthesis provides a vital connection between the sun and the energy needs of living systems.
  
  
• As matter and energy flows through different levels of organization of living systems' cells, organs, organisms, communities - and between living systems and the physical environment - chemical elements are recombined in different ways. Each recombination results in storage and dissipation of energy into the environment as heat. Matter and energy are conserved in each change.
  
  
• Organisms have behavioral responses to internal changes and to external stimuli. Responses to external stimuli can result from interactions with the organism  &nbsps own species and others, as well as environmental changes; these responses either can be innate or learned. The broad patterns of behavior exhibited by animals have evolved to ensure reproductive success. Animals often live in unpredictable environments, and so their behavior must be flexible enough to deal with uncertainty and change. Plants also respond to stimuli.

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CONTENT STANDARD D:

As a result of their activities in grades 9-12, all students should develop understanding of

• Energy in the Earth system
• Geochemical cycles
• Origin and evolution of the Earth system

In conducting climate research, students develop a deeper understanding of the evidence of Earth's past and unravel the interconnected story of Earth's  fluctuating climate. The students' studies develop the concept of the Earth system existing in a state of dynamic equilibrium. They discover that while certain properties of the Earth system may vary on short or long time scales, the Earth system will generally stay within a certain narrow range for millions of years. This long-term stability can be understood through the working of planetary geochemical cycles and the feedback processes that help to maintain or modify those cycles.

As an example of this long-term stability, students find that the geologic record suggests that the global temperature has fluctuated within a relatively narrow range, one that has been narrow enough to enable life to survive and evolve for over three billion years. They come to understand that some of the small temperature fluctuations have produced what we perceive as dramatic effects in the Earth system, such as the ice ages and the extinction of entire species. They explore the regulation of Earth's global temperature by the water and carbon cycles. Using this background, students can examine environmental changes occurring today and make predictions about future temperature fluctuations in the earth system.

Energy in the Earth system

• Earth systems have internal and external sources of energy, both of which create heat. The sun is the major external source of energy. Two primary sources of internal energy are the decay of radioactive isotopes and the gravitational energy from the Earth's original formation.

• Heating of Earth's surface and atmosphere by the sun drives convection within the atmosphere and oceans, producing winds and ocean currents.

• Global climate is determined by energy transfer from the sun at and near the Earth's surface. This energy transfer is influenced by dynamic processes such as cloud cover and the Earth's rotation, and static conditions such as the position of mountain ranges and oceans.

Geochemical cycles

• The Earth is a system containing essentially a fixed amount of each stable chemical atom or element. Each element can exist in several different chemical reservoirs. Each element on earth moves among reservoirs in the solid earth, oceans, atmosphere, and organisms as part of geochemical cycles.

• Movement of matter between reservoirs is driven by the Earth's internal and external sources of energy. These movements are often accompanied by a change in the physical and chemical properties of the matter. Carbon, for example, occurs in carbonate rocks such as limestone, in the atmosphere as carbon dioxide gas, in water as dissolved carbon dioxide, and in all organisms as complex molecules that control the chemistry of life.

The origin and evolution of the Earth system

• Geologic time can be estimated by observing rock sequences and using fossils to correlate the sequences at various locations. Current methods include using the known decay rates.

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CONTENT STANDARD G:

As a result of activities in grades 9-12 , all students should develop understanding of

• Science as a human endeavor
• Nature of scientific knowledge
• Historical perspectives

AS A RESULT OF EdGCM ACTIVITIES STUDENTS SHOULD DEVELOP THESE UNDERSTANDINGS OUTLINED IN CONTENT STANDARD G:

• Scientific explanations must meet certain criteria. First and foremost, they must be consistent with experimental and observational evidence about nature, and must make accurate predictions, when appropriate, about systems being studied. They should also be logical, respect the rules of evidence, be open to criticism, report methods and procedures, and make knowledge public. Explanations on how the natural world changes based on myths, personal beliefs, religious values, mystical inspiration, superstition, or authority may be personally useful and socially relevant, but they are not scientific.

• Because all scientific ideas depend on experimental and observational confirmation, all scientific knowledge is, in principle, subject to change as new evidence becomes available. The core ideas of science such as the conservation of energy or the laws of motion have been subjected to a wide variety of confirmations and are therefore unlikely to change in the areas in which they have been tested. In areas where data or understanding are incomplete, such as the details of human evolution or questions surrounding global warming, new data may well lead to changes in current ideas or resolve current conflicts. In situations where information is still fragmentary, it is normal for scientific ideas to be incomplete, but this is also where the opportunity for making advances may be greatest.

• The historical perspective of scientific explanations demonstrates how scientific knowledge changes by evolving over time, almost always building on earlier knowledge.