23 Grades 6 – 8

Grades 6-8: Overview of Science and Engineering Practices^[1]

Active engagement of middle school students with the science and engineering practices is critical: students generally make up their minds about whether they identify with science and engineering by the time they leave grade 8, and whether they will pursue these fields in high school and beyond. Students must have opportunities to develop the skills necessary for a meaningful progression of development in order to engage in scientific and technical reasoning so critical to success in civic life, postsecondary education, and careers. Inclusion of science and engineering practices in standards only speaks to the types of performances students should be able to demonstrate at the end of instruction at a particular grade; the standards do not limit what educators and students should or can be engaged in through a well-rounded curriculum.

Standards for grades 6 through 8 integrate all eight science and engineering practices. Students’ understanding of and ability with each practice gets more detailed and sophisticated through middle school. For example, by the end of middle school, students can identify limitations of a particular model, including limitations of its accuracy, what features are included (or not), and limitations of what phenomena or outcomes it can predict. Students can develop models of varying levels of detail and accuracy and can identify when a situation calls for a conceptual model with little detail or a specific model with attention to accuracy, such as for making predictions of particular events.

Some examples of specific skills students should develop in these grades:

1. Define criteria and constraints of a design problem with precision.

2. Develop a model to describe cycling of matter in an ecosystem; develop a model that describes and predicts changes in particle motion and spatial arrangement during phase changes; develop and/or revise a model to show the relationships among variables, including those that are not observable but predict observable phenomena.

3. Conduct an investigation to show relationships among energy transfer, type of matter, and kinetic energy of particles; conduct an experiment to show that many materials are mixtures.

4. Examine and interpret data to describe the role human activities have played in the rise of global temperatures over time; construct, analyze, and/or interpret graphical displays of data and/or large data sets to identify linear and nonlinear relationships; distinguish between causal and correlational relationships in data; consider limitations of data analysis.

5. Describe, including through probability statements and proportional reasoning, the process of natural selection; use data and graphs to describe relationships among kinetic energy, mass, and speed of an object.

6. Construct an explanation using evidence for how Earth’s surface has changed over time; apply scientific reasoning to show why the data or evidence is adequate for the explanation.

Construct an argument based on evidence for how environmental and genetic factors influence organism growth; respectfully provide and receive critiques about one’s arguments, procedures, and models by citing relevant evidence with pertinent detail.