NGSS Maine Standards

6th GRADE STANDARDS covered but not limited to:

​What students can do...

MS-ESS1-1. 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.

LINKS:  KidsAstronomy,  Cosmos4Kids, AstronomyforKids

Vocabulary:  model, patterns, motion, solar system, constellation, eclipse, phase, sun, moon. Earth, spin axis, tilt, orbit, seasons, differential intensity, sunlight, area, year. 

• The cyclical phases of the moon.
• How the lunar and solar eclipses occur.
• The seasons (and daylight hours) and their positions, including the relative distance.
• The northern and southern hemispheres are reversed for seasons.
• The seasons are a result of that tilt and are caused by the differential intensity of sunlight on different areas of Earth across the year. 
• Patterns of the apparent motion of the sun, the moon, and stars in the sky can be observed, described, predicted, and explained with models.
• Use a physical, graphical or conceptual model of the solar system to explain eclipses of the sun and the moon, and the seasons.

MS-ESS1-2.  Develop and use a model to describe the role of gravity in the motions within galaxies and the solar system.

Vocabulary:  (includes MS-ESS1-1 vocabulary), Milky Way, galaxy, universe, planets, moons, and asteroids, gravity, elliptical orbits, disk of dust and gas, comets, accretion theory, Newton’s Law  (inertia)

• Objects in the solar system appear to have formed from a disk of dust and gas, drawn together by gravity. 
• The solar system consists of the sun and a collection of objects, including planets, their moons, and asteroids that are held in orbit around the sun by its gravitational pull on them. 
• The Earth and its solar system are part of the Milky Way galaxy, which is one of many galaxies in the universe. 
• The galaxies contain large number of stars, each capable of having planets and moons.
• Use a physical, graphical or conceptual model to demonstrate how gravity by the sun affects the motion of the objects within the galaxies and in the solar system (planets and their moons, asteroids, and other objects).

MS-ESS1-3.  Analyze and interpret data to determine scale properties of objects in the solar system.

Vocabulary:  scale, scale properties

• That scale properties include the sizes of an object’s layers (such as crust and atmosphere), surface features (such as volcanoes), and orbital radius. 
• Analyze, interpret and determine scale properties of objects in the solar system.
• Use a physical, graphical or conceptual model to illustrate the similarities and differences among solar system objects.

ESS2-1.  Develop a model to describe the cycling of Earth’s materials and the flow of energy that drives this process.

LINK:  Dynamic Earth

Vocabulary:  geology, energy/energy flow, matter cycling, Earth’s layered structure, rock cycle, plate tectonics, solar energy and Earth’s internal energy, geologic cycles (hydrologic cycle, biogeochemical cycles, rock cycle).

• All Earth’s processes are the results of energy flowing and matter cycling within and among the planet’s systems.
• This energy is derived from the sun and Earth’s hot interior.
• The energy that flows and matter that cycles produce chemical and physical changes in Earth’s materials and living organisms.

ESS2-2. Construct an explanation based on evidence for how geoscience processes have changed Earth’s surface at varying time and spatial scales.

LINK: Rock Cycle

Vocabulary:  geoscience processes, weathering and erosion, surface features, underground formations, spatial scale. time scale (gradual & catastrophic), geochemical reactions

• Water’s movements—both on the land and underground—cause weathering and erosion, which change the land’s surface features and create underground formations.
• The planet’s systems interact over scales that range from microscopic to global in size, and they operate over fractions of a second to billions of years. These interactions have shaped Earth’s history and will determine its future. 
• Emphasis is on how processes change Earth’s surface at time and spatial scales that can be large (such as slow plate motions or the uplift of large mountain ranges) or small (such as rapid landslides or microscopic geochemical reactions), and how many geoscience processes (such as earthquakes, volcanoes, and meteor impacts) usually behave gradually but are punctuated by catastrophic events. 
• Examples of geoscience processes include surface weathering and deposition by the movements of water, ice, and wind.

ESS2-3. Analyze and interpret data on the distribution of fossils and rocks, continental shapes, and seafloor structures to provide evidence of the past plate motions.

• Maps of ancient land and water patterns, based on investigations of rocks and fossils, make clear how Earth’s plates have moved great distances, collided, and spread apart. (MS-ESS2-3) 
• Tectonic processes continually generate new ocean sea floor at ridges and destroy old sea floor at trenches(secondary to MS-ESS2-3) 
• Examples of data include similarities of rock and fossil types on different continents, the shapes of the continents (including continental shelves), and the locations of ocean structures (such as ridges, fracture zones, and trenches).

[Assessment Boundary: Paleomagnetic anomalies in oceanic and continental crust are not assessed.]

MS-PS1-1.  Develop models to describe the atomic composition of simple molecules and extended structures.

LINKS:  Chemistry 4 Kids,  Periodic Table

Vocabulary:  matter, mass, volume, substance, atom, molecule, crystals, bonds, molecular-level models, simple molecules, extended structures

• Substances are made from different types of atoms, which combine with one another in various ways. 
• Atoms form molecules that range in size from two to thousands of atoms.
• Solids may be formed from molecules, or they may be extended structures with repeating subunits (e.g. crystals).

[Assessment Boundary: Assessment does not include valence electrons and bonding energy, discussing the ionic nature of subunits of complex structures, or a complete description of all individual atoms in a complex molecule or extended structure is not required.]

MS-PS1-2.  Analyze and interpret data on the properties of substances before and after the substances interact to determine if a chemical reaction has occurred.
MS-PS1-3.

LINK: Chem4Kids

Vocabulary:  pure substance, physical property, chemical property, chemical process/reaction, reactants, products, characteristic property (density, melting point, boiling point, solubility, flammability, and odor)

• Each pure substance has characteristic physical and chemical properties (for any bulk quantity under given conditions) that can be used to identify it.
• Substances react chemically in characteristic ways. In a chemical process, the atoms that make up the original substances are regrouped into different molecules, and these new substances have different properties from those of the reactants.

[Clarification Statement: Examples of reactions could include burning sugar or steel wool, fat reacting with sodium hydroxide, and mixing zinc with hydrogen chloride.] 
[Assessment boundary: Assessment is limited to analysis of the following properties: density, melting point, boiling point, solubility, flammability, and odor.]

MS-PS1-4. 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.

LINK: Physics4Kids

Vocabulary:  pure substance, physical property, chemical property, chemical process/reaction, reactants, products, characteristic property (density, melting point, boiling point, solubility, flammability, and odor)

• Gases and liquids are made of molecules or inert atoms that are moving about relative to each other. (PS1-4)
• In a liquid, the molecules are constantly in contact with others; in a gas, they are widely spaced except when they happen to collide. In a solid, atoms are closely spaced and may vibrate in position but do not change relative locations. (PS1-4)
• The changes of state that occur with variations in temperature or pressure can be described and predicted using these models of matter. (PS1-4)

PS3A. Definitions of Energy
The term “heat” as used in everyday language refers both to thermal energy (the motion of atoms or molecules within a substance) and the transfer of that thermal energy form one object to another. In science, heat is used only for this second meaning; it refers to the energy transferred due to the temperature difference between two objects. (secondary to PS1-4)
The temperature of a system is proportional to the average internal kinetic energy and potential energy per atom or molecule (whichever is the appropriate building block for the system’s material). The details of that relationship depend on the type of atom or molecule and the interactions among the atoms in the material. Temperature is not a direct measure of a system’s total thermal energy. The total thermal energy (sometimes called the total internal energy) of a system depends jointly on the temperature, the total number of atoms in the system, and the state of the material (secondary to PS1-4)

MS-PS1-5. 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. 

LINK: Chemistry4Kids

Vocabulary: Law of conservation of matter (and energy), mass, matter, chemical reaction, reactants, products, characteristic property.

• Substances react chemically in characteristic ways. In a chemical process, the atoms that make up the original substances are regrouped into different molecules, and these new substances have different properties from those of the reactants. (PS1-2, PS1-5; also addressed by PS1-3)
• The total number of each type of atom is conserved, and thus the mass does not change. (PS1-5)
• 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.
• Emphasis is on law of conservation of matter and on physical models or drawings, including digital forms, that represent atoms.

[Assessment Boundary: Assessment does not include the use of atomic masses, balancing symbolic equations, or intermolecular forces.]

MS-PS2-1.  Apply Newton’s Third Law to Design a Solution to a Problem Involving the Motion of Two Colliding Objects.
MS-PS2-2.

LINKS: Physics Classroom,  Newton's Laws,  Discovery Interactive

• For any pair of interacting objects the force exerted by the first object on the second object is equal in strength to the force that the forces that the second exerts on the first, but in the opposite directions. (Newton’s third law)

MS-PS3-1. 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. 

LINK: KE = mV2

• Motion energy is properly called kinetic energy; it is proportional to the mass of the moving object and grows with the square of its speed.

[Clarification Statement: Emphasis is on descriptive relationships between kinetic energy and mass separately from kinetic energy and speed. Examples could include riding a bicycle at different speeds, rolling different sizes of rocks downhill, and getting hit by a wiffle ball versus a tennis ball.]