Seventh Grade Science
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Scientific Process Skills - 6th, 7th & 8th Grade
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Inquiry
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Students
- Generate scientific questions based on observations, investigations, and research.
- Design and conduct scientific investigations.
- Use tools and equipment (e.g., microscopes, spring scales, stop watches, models, thermometers, PH meters) appropriate to scientific investigations.
- Use metric measurement devices in scientific investigations.
- Construct charts and graphs from data and observations dealing with investigation.
- Identify patterns in data.
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Inquiry Analysis and Communication
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Students
- Analyze information from data tables and graphs to answer scientific questions.
- Evaluate data, claims, and personal knowledge through collaborative science discourse.
- Communicate and defend findings of observations and investigations
- Draw conclusions from sets of data from multiple trials of a scientific investigation.
- Use multiple sources of information to evaluate strengths and weaknesses of claims, arguments, or data.
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Reflection and Social Implications
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Students
- Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of claims, arguments, and data.
- Describe limitations in personal and scientific knowledge regarding science concepts.
- Identify the need for evidence in making scientific decisions
- Evaluate scientific explanations based on current evidence and scientific principles.
- Demonstrate scientific concepts through various illustrations, performances, models, exhibits, and activities.
- Design solutions to scientific problems using technology.
- Describe the effect humans and other organisms have on the balance of the natural world.
- Describe what science and technology can and cannot reasonably contribute to society.
- Describe how science and technology have advanced because of the contributions of many people throughout history and across cultures.
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Seventh Grade Specific Science Curriculum Concepts
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Life Science
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Key Science Content Concepts
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Animal Systems
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- Animals’ bodies are made up of various body systems that perform specific functions.
- These body systems function together and contribute to the animal’s survival and well-being.
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Evolution and Traits of Organisms
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- Traits are influenced by both genetics of the individual and the environment.
- Traits can be classified as either inherited or acquired.
- Each organism (plants and animals) has specific behavioral and physical characteristics allowing it to better survive in a given environment.
- As environments change over time, these characteristics may change (adaptations) to allow them to continue to survive or flourish in their environment.
- Fossils provide evidence that life forms have changed over time and were influenced by changes in environmental conditions including catastrophic events.
- Organisms that are similar in anatomical structures are more likely to be more closely related than those whose structures are less similar to one another.
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Ecosystems
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- All life forms, including humans, are part of a global food chain in which food is supplied by plants, which need light to produce food.
- Ecosystems continually change with time as environmental factors and populations of organisms change.
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Structures and Processes of Living Things
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- All living organisms are composed of cells, from one cell to many cells and they exhibit cell growth and division.
- Specialized cells within multi-cellular organisms form different kinds of tissues and organs and organ systems that function together.
- Photosynthesis transforms light energy to chemical energy making possible the building of key chemical building blocks of living organisms.
- All organisms have a life span and must reproduce in order to continue the species. Reproduction may be asexual or sexual.
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Other Resources
State Science Grade Level Content Expectations for Seventh Grade 364kb PDF 
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