Grade 6 Science Tennessee standards Standards

Earth's Systems

Gather evidence to justify that oceanic convection currents are caused by the sun's transfer of heat energy and differences in salt concentration leading to global water movement.

Diagram convection patterns that flow due to uneven heating of the earth.

Construct an explanation for how atmospheric flow, geographic features, and ocean currents affect the climate of a region through heat transfer.

Apply scientific principles to design a method to analyze and interpret the impact of humans and other organisms on the hydrologic cycle.

Analyze and interpret data from weather conditions, weather maps, satellites, and radar to predict probable local weather patterns and conditions.

Explain how relationships between the movement and interactions of air masses, high and low pressure systems, and frontal boundaries result in weather conditions and severe storms.

Earth and Human Activity

Differentiate between renewable and nonrenewable resources by asking questions about their availability and sustainability.

Investigate and compare existing and developing technologies that utilize renewable and alternative energy resources.

Assess the impacts of human activities on the biosphere including conservation, habitat management, species endangerment, and extinction.

Engineering Design

Evaluate design constraints on solutions for maintaining ecosystems and biodiversity.

Design and test different solutions that impact energy transfer.

Ecosystems: Interactions, Energy, and Dynamics

Evaluate and communicate the impact of environmental variables on population size.

Determine the impact of competitive, symbiotic, and predatory interactions in an ecosystem.

Draw conclusions about the transfer of energy through a food web and energy pyramid in an ecosystem.

Using evidence from climate data, draw conclusions about the patterns of abiotic and biotic factors in different biomes, specifically the tundra, taiga, deciduous forest, desert, grasslands, rainforest, marine, and freshwater ecosystems.

Analyze existing evidence about the effect of a specific invasive species on native populations in Tennessee and design a solution to mitigate its impact.

Research the ways in which an ecosystem has changed over time in response to changes in physical conditions, population balances, human interactions, and natural catastrophes.

Compare and contrast auditory and visual methods of communication among organisms in relation to survival strategies of a population.

Biological Change: Unity and Diversity

Explain how changes in biodiversity would impact ecosystem stability and natural resources.

Design a possible solution for maintaining biodiversity of ecosystems while still providing necessary human resources without disrupting environmental equilibrium.

Energy

Analyze the properties and compare sources of mechanical, electrical, chemical, radiant, and thermal energy.

Construct a scientific explanation of the transformations between potential and kinetic energy.

Analyze and interpret data to show the relationship between kinetic energy and the mass of an object in motion and its speed.

Conduct an investigation to demonstrate the way that heat (thermal energy) moves among objects through radiation, conduction, or convection.

Algorithmic Thinking

Use clearly named variables of various data types to create generalized algorithms.

Create algorithms which include methods of controlling the flow of computation using “if…then… else” type conditional statements to perform different operations depending on the values of inputs.

Identify algorithms that make use of sequencing, selection, or iteration.

Describe how algorithmic processes and automation increase efficiency.

Data Analysis

Represent data using multiple encoding schemes, such as decimal, binary, Unicode, Morse code, Shorthand, student-created codes.

Refine computational models based on the data they have generated.

Collect, analyze, transform, and refine computational data to make it more useful and reliable.

Foundational Concepts

Analyze the advantages and limitations of existing computing devices to improve user experience.

Demonstrate skills in identifying and solving hardware and software problems that can occur during regular usage.

Apply computational thinking to a variety of problems across multiple disciplines.

Understand how collaboration is essential to computer science and apply collaborative skills to develop computational solutions.

Impacts of Computing

Identify and evaluate the impacts computer science innovations have had on our society.

Identify how computational systems are being used to collect and analyze information both public and private and understand the benefits and disadvantages of these systems for the user and developer.

Cite evidence of the positive and negative effects of data permanence on personal and professional digital identity.

Discuss digital globalization and Internet censorship.

Investigate a variety of education pathways and career options that utilize computational thinking and/or computer science skills across the state of Tennessee and the world.

Networking and the Internet

Identify and employ appropriate troubleshooting techniques used to solve computing or connectivity issues.

Differentiate between secure and non-secure websites and applications including how they affect and use personal data.

Describe the causes and effects of intellectual property as it relates to print and digital media, considering copyright, fair use, licensing, sharing, and attribution.

Compare and contrast common methods of securing data and cybersecurity.

Analyze different modes of social engineering and their effectiveness.

Programming Concepts

Decompose problems and subproblems into parts to facilitate the design, implementation, and review of programs.

Create procedures with parameters that hide the complexity of a task and can be reused to solve similar tasks.

Seek and incorporate feedback from team members and users to refine a solution that meets user needs.

Provide proper attribution when incorporating existing code, media, and libraries into original programs.

Use the iterative design process to systematically test and refine programs to improve performance and eliminate errors.

Document programs using comments and/or README files to make them easier to follow, test, and debug.

Design a function using a programming language.

Earth and Human Activity

Use data to explain the consumption and sustainability of natural resources (non-renewable and renewable) and the resulting impact on Earth’s system.

Investigate and compare existing and developing technologies that utilize renewable and alternative energy resources.

Obtain, evaluate, and communicate information about the impacts of human activities on the biosphere including conservation, habitat management, species endangerment, and extinction.

Engineering Design

Design, evaluate, and improve a possible solution for maintaining biodiversity of ecosystems.

Design, construct, and test a device that either minimizes or maximizes thermal energy transfer by combining solutions or parts of solutions to solve a problem that can be communicated and explained to others.

Ecosystems: Interactions, Energy, and Dynamics

Use data to evaluate and communicate the impact of environmental variables, both living and nonliving (e.g., food, water, oxygen, and other resources), on population size within a system.

Construct an explanation that predicts patterns of competitive, symbiotic, and predatory interactions among organisms across ecosystems.

Use a model to construct an explanation about the transfer of energy through a food web and energy pyramid in an ecosystem.

Construct an explanation that uses abiotic (e.g., precipitation, temperature, soil) and biotic (e.g., biodiversity, number of organisms) patterns in earth’s terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems (e.g., tundra, taiga, deciduous forest, desert, grasslands, rainforest, marine, and freshwater) as measures of ecosystem health.

Analyze existing evidence about the effect of a specific invasive species on native populations in Tennessee and design a solution to mitigate its impact.

Earth’s Systems

Biological Change: Unity and Diversity

Diagram oceanic and atmospheric convection patterns in a system that flow due to uneven heating of the earth.

Explain how changes to biodiversity in a system would impact human resources (e.g., food, medicine, and clean water) and “ecosystem services” (e.g., climate stabilization, decomposition of waste, and pollination).

Gather evidence to justify that oceanic convection currents in a system are caused by the sun's transfer of thermal energy and differences in salinity leading to global water movement.

Construct an explanation for how atmospheric flow, geographic features, and ocean currents affect the climate of a region through heat transfer.

Develop and use a model to describe the cycling of water through Earth's systems driven by energy from the sun and the force of gravity.

Analyze and interpret data to determine the impact of humans and other organisms on the water cycle, landforms (e.g., rain shadow effect) and atmospheric systems.

Develop a model to explain the role of greenhouse gases in regulating the Earth’s average surface temperature and keeping it habitable.

Collect data to provide evidence for how the interactions of air masses result in changes in local weather conditions and how that data can be used to predict probable local weather patterns.

Energy

Analyze the sources of energy in a system to gather evidence supporting that energy is conserved during transfers of kinetic, potential (elastic, gravitational, and chemical), and/or thermal energy.

Use a model to gather evidence to support changes to a system can be caused by transfers of sound or thermal energy (i.e., conduction, convection, or radiation).