Grade 6 Science NJSLS Standards

Technological disparities have consequences for public health and prosperity.

Resources need to be utilized wisely to have positive effects on the environment and society. Some technological decisions involve tradeoffs between environmental and economic needs, while others have positive effects for both the economy and environment

Technology advances through the processes of innovation and invention which relies upon the imaginative and inventive nature of people. Sometimes a technology developed for one purpose is adapted to serve other purposes. Engineers use a systematic process of creating or modifying technologies that is fueled and constrained by physical laws, cultural norms, and economic resources. Scientists use systematic investigation to understand the natural world.

Technology interacts with society, sometimes bringing about changes in a society’s economy, politics, and culture, and often leading to the creation of new needs and wants. New needs and wants may create strains on local economies and workforces. Improvements in technology are intended to make the completion of tasks easier, safer, and/or more efficient.

Economic, political, social and cultural aspects of society drive development of new technological products, processes, and systems.

Engineering design requirements and specifications involve making trade-offs between competing requirements and desired design features.

Engineering design is a systematic, creative, and iterative process used to address local and global problems. The process includes generating ideas, choosing the best solution, and making, testing, and redesigning models or prototypes.

Individuals design and test solutions to identify problems taking into consideration the diverse needs of the users and the community.

Programs use procedures to organize code and hide implementation details. Procedures can be repurposed in new programs. Defining parameters for procedures can generalize behavior and increase reusability.

Control structures are selected and combined in programs to solve more complex problems.

Programmers create variables to store data values of different types and perform appropriate operations on their values.

Individuals design algorithms that are reusable in many situations. Algorithms that are readable are easier to follow, test, and debug.

Computer models can be used to simulate events, examine theories and inferences, or make predictions.

The purpose of cleaning data is to remove errors and make it easier for computers to process.

Data is represented in many formats. Software tools translate the low-level representation of bits into a form understandable by individuals. Data is organized and accessible based on the application used to store it.

People use digital devices and tools to automate the collection, use, and transformation of data. The manner in which data is collected and transformed is influenced by the type of digital device(s) available and the intended use of the data

Advancements in computing technology can change individuals’ behaviors. Society is faced with trade-offs due to the increasing globalization and automation that computing brings.

The information sent and received across networks can be protected from unauthorized access and modification in a variety of ways. The evolution of malware leads to understanding the key security measures and best practices needed to proactively address the threat to digital data.

Protocols, packets, and addressing are the key components for reliable delivery of information across networks.

Troubleshooting a problem is more effective when knowledge of the specific device along with a systematic process is used to identify the source of a problem.

Software and hardware determine a computing system’s capability to store and process information. The design or selection of a computing system involves multiple considerations and potential trade-offs.

The study of human–computer interaction can improve the design of devices and extend the abilities of humans.

Computer Science

Algorithms & Programming

Design and illustrate algorithms that solve complex problems using flowcharts and/or pseudocode.

Create clearly named variables that represent different data types and perform operations on their values.

Design and iteratively develop programs that combine control structures, including nested loops and compound conditionals.

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

Create procedures with parameters to organize code and make it easier to reuse.

Refine a solution that meets users’ needs by incorporating feedback from team members and users.

Design programs, incorporating existing code, media, and libraries, and give attribution.

Systematically test and refine programs using a range of test cases and users.

Document programs in order to make them easier to follow, test, and debug.

Computing Systems

Recommend improvements to computing devices in order to improve the ways users interact with the devices.

Design a system that combines hardware and software components to process data.

Justify design decisions and explain potential system trade-offs.

Systematically apply troubleshooting strategies to identify and resolve hardware and software problems in computing systems.

Data & Analysis

Organize and transform data collected using computational tools to make it usable for a specific purpose.

Explain the difference between how the computer stores data as bits and how the data is displayed.

Identify the appropriate tool to access data based on its file format.

Transform data to remove errors and improve the accuracy of the data for analysis.

Test, analyze, and refine computational models.

Analyze climate change computational models and propose refinements.

Impacts of Computing

Compare the trade-offs associated with computing technologies that affect individual’s everyday activities and career options.

Describe issues of bias and accessibility in the design of existing technologies.

Networks and the Internet

Model how information is broken down into smaller pieces, transmitted as addressed packets through multiple devices over networks and the Internet, and reassembled at the destination.

Model the role of protocols in transmitting data across networks and the Internet and how they enable secure and errorless communication.

Explain how network security depends on a combination of hardware, software, and practices that control access to data and systems.

Explain how new security measures have been created in response to key malware events.

Design Thinking

Ethics & Culture

Explain ethical issues that may arise from the use of new technologies.

Examine the effects of ethical and unethical practices in product design and development.

Engineering Design

Evaluate the function, value, and aesthetics of a technological product or system, from the perspective of the user and the producer.

Identify the steps in the design process that could be used to solve a problem.

Develop a proposal for a solution to a real-world problem that includes a model (e.g., physical prototype, graphical/technical sketch).

Investigate a malfunctioning system, identify its impact, and explain the step-by-step process used to troubleshoot, evaluate, and test options to repair the product in a collaborative team.

Explain the need for optimization in a design process.

Analyze how trade-offs can impact the design of a product.

Design a product to address a real-world problem and document the iterative design process, including decisions made as a result of specific constraints and trade-offs (e.g., annotated sketches).

Effects of Technology on the Natural World

Illustrate how a product is upcycled into a new product and analyze the short- and long-term benefits and costs.

Analyze the impact of modifying resources in a product or system (e.g., materials, energy, information, time, tools, people, capital).

Analyze the design of a product that negatively impacts the environment or society and develop possible solutions to lessen its impact.

Compare the environmental effects of two alternative technologies devised to address climate change issues and use data to justify which choice is best.

Interaction of Technology and Humans

Explain how the development and use of technology influences economic, political, social, and cultural issues.

Compare how technologies have influenced society over time

Evaluate the impact of sustainability on the development of a designed product or system.

Identify technologies that have been designed to reduce the negative consequences of other technologies and explain the change in impact.

Compare the impacts of a given technology on different societies, noting factors that may make a technology appropriate and sustainable in one society but not in another.

Nature of Technology

Examine a malfunctioning tool, product, or system and propose solutions to the problem.

Analyze an existing technological product that has been repurposed for a different function.

Examine a system, consider how each part relates to other parts, and redesign it for another purpose.

Explain how a product designed for a specific demand was modified to meet a new demand and led to a new product.

Earth's Place in the Universe

Develop and use a model of the Earth-sun-moon system to describe the cyclic patterns of lunar phases, eclipses of the sun and moon, and seasons.

Develop and use a model to describe the role of gravity in the motions within galaxies and the solar system.

Analyze and interpret data to determine scale properties of objects in the solar system.

Construct a scientific explanation based on evidence from rock strata for how the geologic time scale is used to organize Earth's 4.6-billion-year-old history.

Earth's Systems

Develop a model to describe the cycling of Earth's materials and the flow of energy that drives this process

Construct an explanation based on evidence for how geoscience processes have changed Earth's surface at varying time and spatial scales.

Analyze and interpret data on the distribution of fossils and rocks, continental shapes, and seafloor structures to provide evidence of the past plate motions.

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

Collect data to provide evidence for how the motions and complex interactions of air masses result in changes in weather conditions.

Develop and use a model to describe how unequal heating and rotation of the Earth cause patterns of atmospheric and oceanic circulation that determine regional climates.

Earth and Human Activity

Construct a scientific explanation based on evidence for how the uneven distributions of Earth's mineral, energy, and groundwater resources are the result of past and current geoscience processes.

Analyze and interpret data on natural hazards to forecast future catastrophic events and inform the development of technologies to mitigate their effects.

Apply scientific principles to design a method for monitoring and minimizing a human impact on the environment.

Construct an argument supported by evidence for how increases in human population and per-capita consumption of natural resources impact Earth's systems.

Ask questions to clarify evidence of the factors that have caused climate change over the past century.

Engineering Design

Define the criteria and constraints of a design problem with sufficient precision to ensure a successful solution, taking into account relevant scientific principles and potential impacts on people and the natural environment that may limit possible solutions.

Evaluate competing design solutions using a systematic process to determine how well they meet the criteria and constraints of the problem.

Analyze data from tests to determine similarities and differences among several design solutions to identify the best characteristics of each that can be combined into a new solution to better meet the criteria for success.

Develop a model to generate data for iterative testing and modification of a proposed object, tool, or process such that an optimal design can be achieved.

Biological Evolution: Unity and Diversity

From Molecules to Organisms: Structures and Processes

Conduct an investigation to provide evidence that living things are made of cells; either one cell or many different numbers and types of cells.

Develop and use a model to describe the function of a cell as a whole and ways parts of cells contribute to the function.

Use argument supported by evidence for how the body is a system of interacting subsystems composed of groups of cells.

Use argument based on empirical evidence and scientific reasoning to support an explanation for how characteristic animal behaviors and specialized plant structures affect the probability of successful reproduction of animals and plants respectively.

Construct a scientific explanation based on evidence for how environmental and genetic factors influence the growth of organisms.

Construct a scientific explanation based on evidence for the role of photosynthesis in the cycling of matter and flow of energy into and out of organisms.

Develop a model to describe how food is rearranged through chemical reactions forming new molecules that support growth and/or release energy as this matter moves through an organism.

Gather and synthesize information that sensory receptors respond to stimuli by sending messages to the brain for immediate behavior or storage as memories.

Ecosystems: Interactions, Energy, and Dynamics

Analyze and interpret data to provide evidence for the effects of resource availability on organisms and populations of organisms in an ecosystem.

Construct an explanation that predicts patterns of interactions among organisms across multiple ecosystems.

Develop a model to describe the cycling of matter and flow of energy among living and nonliving parts of an ecosystem.

Construct an argument supported by empirical evidence that changes to physical or biological components of an ecosystem affect populations.

Evaluate competing design solutions for maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem services.

Heredity: Inheritance and Variation of Traits

Develop and use a model to describe why structural changes to genes (mutations) located on chromosomes may affect proteins and may result in harmful, beneficial, or neutral effects to the structure and function of the organism.

Develop and use a model to describe why asexual reproduction results in offspring with identical genetic information and sexual reproduction results in offspring with genetic variation.

Analyze and interpret data for patterns in the fossil record that document the existence, diversity, extinction, and change of life forms throughout the history of life on Earth under the assumption that natural laws operate today as in the past.

Apply scientific ideas to construct an explanation for the anatomical similarities and differences among modern organisms and between modern and fossil organisms to infer evolutionary relationships.

Analyze displays of pictorial data to compare patterns of similarities in the embryological development across multiple species to identify relationships not evident in the fully formed anatomy.

Construct an explanation based on evidence that describes how genetic variations of traits in a population increase some individuals' probability of surviving and reproducing in a specific environment.

Gather and synthesize information about the technologies that have changed the way humans influence the inheritance of desired traits in organisms.

Use mathematical representations to support explanations of how natural selection may lead to increases and decreases of specific traits in populations over time.

Matter and its Interactions

Develop models to describe the atomic composition of simple molecules and extended structures.

Analyze and interpret data on the properties of substances before and after the substances interact to determine if a chemical reaction has occurred.

Gather and make sense of information to describe that synthetic materials come from natural resources and impact society.

Develop a model that predicts and describes changes in particle motion, temperature, and state of a pure substance when thermal energy is added or removed.

Develop and use a model to describe how the total number of atoms does not change in a chemical reaction and thus mass is conserved.

Undertake a design project to construct, test, and modify a device that either releases or absorbs thermal energy by chemical processes.

Motion and Stability: Forces and Interactions

Apply Newton's Third Law to design a solution to a problem involving the motion of two colliding objects.

Plan an investigation to provide evidence that the change in an object's motion depends on the sum of the forces on the object and the mass of the object.

Ask questions about data to determine the factors that affect the strength of electric and magnetic forces.

Construct and present arguments using evidence to support the claim that gravitational interactions are attractive and depend on the masses of interacting objects.

Conduct an investigation and evaluate the experimental design to provide evidence that fields exist between objects exerting forces on each other even though the objects are not in contact.

Energy

Construct and interpret graphical displays of data to describe the relationships of kinetic energy to the mass of an object and to the speed of an object.

Develop a model to describe that when the arrangement of objects interacting at a distance changes, different amounts of potential energy are stored in the system.

Apply scientific principles to design, construct, and test a device that either minimizes or maximizes thermal energy transfer.

Plan an investigation to determine the relationships among the energy transferred, the type of matter, the mass, and the change in the average kinetic energy of the particles as measured by the temperature of the sample.

Construct, use, and present arguments to support the claim that when the kinetic energy of an object changes, energy is transferred to or from the object.

Waves and Their Applications in Technologies for Information Transfer

Use mathematical representations to describe a simple model for waves that includes how the amplitude of a wave is related to the energy in a wave.

Develop and use a model to describe that waves are reflected, absorbed, or transmitted through various materials.

Integrate qualitative scientific and technical information to support the claim that digitized signals are a more reliable way to encode and transmit information than analog signals.