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How to learn Grade 6: Science

Colorado academic standards: Science, Grade 6

0 of 40 concepts ready to learn · Markdown, for your AI

1. Earth and Space Science · Human activities affect global warming. Decisions to reduce the impact of global warming depend on understanding climate science, engineering capabilities, and social dynamic

  1. Climate Change Basics: Understand the basics of climate change: Earth’s atmosphere traps some of the Sun's heat (the greenhouse effect), burning fossil fuels adds extra greenhouse gases (especially CO₂), this is making Earth gradually warmer, and this warming changes weather patterns, melts ice, and raises sea levels

2. Earth and Space Science · Human activities have altered the biosphere, sometimes damaging it, although changes to environments can have different impacts for different living things.

  1. Earth's Atmosphere & CO2: Describe the composition of Earth's atmosphere (mainly nitrogen and oxygen, with small amounts of CO₂ and other gases), explain how human activity increases CO₂, and describe the impact on global climate
  2. Earth's atmosphere: Develop a model to describe ways the geosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere interact as connected Earth systems

3. Earth and Space Science · Mapping the history of natural hazards in a region and understanding related geological forces.

  1. Hazard Assessment & Evacuation: Explain probabilistic hazard assessment using eruption recurrence intervals and fault slip rates; describe how volcano observatories monitor ground deformation, gas emissions, and seismicity to issue alert levels; explore why communities remain near active hazards (fertile volcanic soil, poverty, cultural ties); discuss the ethics and politics of evacuation decisions and the social justice dimensions of disaster risk

4. Earth and Space Science · Complex interactions determine local weather patterns and influence climate, including the role of the ocean.

  1. Oceans & Climate: Understand the connection between the ocean and climate: the ocean absorbs heat and carbon dioxide, drives weather patterns through evaporation, and ocean currents distribute warmth around the planet — making the ocean Earth's climate engine

5. Earth and Space Science · Water cycles among land, ocean, and atmosphere, and is propelled by sunlight and gravity. Density variations of sea water drive interconnected ocean currents. Water movement

  1. Sun-Driven Weather Systems: Understand how the Sun drives weather: the Sun heats Earth's surface unevenly (land heats faster than water, equator gets more heat than poles), creating differences in air pressure that cause wind patterns, ocean currents, and large-scale weather systems
  2. The Water Cycle: Describe the water cycle, tracing water through evaporation, condensation, precipitation, surface runoff, and transpiration in plants, explaining how the sun drives the cycle

6. Earth and Space Science · Plate tectonics is the unifying theory that explains movements of rocks at Earth's surface and geological history.

  1. How Tectonic Plates Move: Understand that convection currents in the molten mantle drive the movement of rigid tectonic plates; distinguish between convergent (collision/subduction), divergent (spreading ridges), and transform (sliding) plate boundaries; explain why volcanoes, earthquakes, and mountain chains cluster at boundaries; introduce the Wilson cycle of supercontinent assembly and breakup
  2. Tectonic Plates: Understand that Earth's crust is broken into large pieces called tectonic plates that float on hotter, softer rock beneath and move very slowly — a few centimetres per year

7. Earth and Space Science · Rock strata and the fossil record can be used as evidence to organize the relative occurrence of major historical events in Earth's history.

  1. How fossils form: Identify evidence from patterns in rock formations and fossils in rock layers to support an explanation for changes in a landscape over time

8. Earth and Space Science · The solar system contains many varied objects held together by gravity. Solar system models explain and predict eclipses, lunar phases, and seasons.

  1. Earth & Space Vocabulary: Use technical vocabulary for Earth's motion and the wider universe — rotation, revolution, axis, tilt, orbit, light year, gravitational force, atmosphere, lunar phases, waxing, waning, solstice, equinox, eclipse — and apply these when explaining day and night, the seasons, and the Moon's phases
  2. Scale of the Solar System: Use scale models, diagrams, or calculations to represent the relative sizes and distances of objects in the solar system, understanding that the distances between planets are enormously larger than the planets themselves
  3. Gravity Pulls Things Down: Understand gravity as a force that pulls objects towards the centre of the Earth, that 'down' means towards Earth’s centre regardless of where you stand on the sphere, and that gravity keeps the Moon orbiting Earth and planets orbiting the Sun

9. Earth and Space Science · Motion is predictable in both solar systems and galaxies.

  1. Universal Gravitation: Describe gravity as a universal attractive force between all masses, explain that orbital motion arises because gravity provides the centripetal force keeping objects in orbit, and compare gravitational field strengths on different planets

10. Life Science · Biodiversity is the wide range of existing life forms that have adapted to the variety of conditions on Earth, from terrestrial to marine ecosystems.

  1. Biodiversity & Resilience: Explain what biodiversity means, why high biodiversity makes ecosystems more resilient, and describe the ways human activity threatens biodiversity (habitat destruction, pollution, invasive species, climate change)

11. Life Science · Adaptation by natural selection acting over generations is one important process by which species change over time in response to changes in environmental conditions.

  1. How Natural Selection Works: Explain natural selection as the mechanism of evolution: heritable variation + competition for resources + differential survival and reproduction = change in allele frequency over generations
  2. How animals adapt to environments: Identify how animals and plants are adapted to suit their environment and understand that adaptation may lead to evolution over time

12. Life Science · Genetic variations among individuals in a population give some individuals an advantage in surviving and reproducing in their environment.

  1. Variation & Survival Advantage: Use evidence to explain how variations in characteristics among individuals of the same species may provide advantages in surviving, finding mates, and reproducing

13. Life Science · Fossils are mineral replacements, preserved remains, or traces of organisms that lived in the past.

  1. Fossils as Evidence: Analyse and interpret data from fossils to provide evidence of organisms and environments that existed long ago

14. Life Science · Heredity explains why offspring resemble, but are not identical to, their parents and is a unifying biological principle. Heredity refers to specific mechanisms by which characteristics

  1. Offspring resemble parents: Observe that young plants and animals resemble their parents but are not identical, recognising inherited similarities and individual differences

15. Life Science · Ecosystems are dynamic in nature; their characteristics can vary over time. Disruptions to any physical or biological component of an ecosystem.

  1. Changing Environments: Recognise that environments can change and that this can sometimes pose dangers and challenges to living things

16. Life Science · Ecosystems are sustained by the continuous flow of energy, originating primarily from the sun, and the recycling of matter and nutrients within the system.

  1. Ocean Ecosystems: Understand ocean ecosystems as interconnected systems where living things (producers, consumers, decomposers) and non-living factors (temperature, salinity, light, currents) all interact, and that changes to one part affect the whole system

17. Life Science · Each sense receptor responds to different inputs (electromagnetic, mechanical, chemical), transmitting them as signals that travel along nerve cells to the brain.

  1. Senses, Brain & Responses: Use a model to describe that animals receive information through their senses, process it in their brain, and respond in different ways

18. Life Science · Sustaining life requires substantial energy and matter inputs.

  1. Energy from Food & the Sun: Use models to describe that energy in animals' food was once energy from the sun, transferred through plants or other organisms
  2. Photosynthesis: Explain photosynthesis as the process by which plants use light energy to convert carbon dioxide and water into glucose and oxygen, and describe how mineral nutrients are absorbed through roots

19. Life Science · Organisms reproduce, either sexually or asexually, and transfer their genetic information to their offspring.

  1. Human Reproduction: Describe the structure and function of the male and female human reproductive systems, and explain the processes of fertilisation, gestation, and birth including the role of the placenta
  2. Plant & Animal Reproduction: Describe the life process of reproduction in some plants and animals, including sexual and asexual reproduction in plants

20. Life Science · All living things are made up of cells, which is the smallest unit that can be said to be alive.

  1. Cells Under the Microscope: Understand that all living organisms are made of cells and use a light microscope to observe, interpret, and record cell structure

21. Physical Science · A wave model of light is useful to explain how light interacts with objects through a variety of properties.

  1. Waves & Different Materials: Explain how waves can be absorbed, transmitted, or reflected by different materials, and apply these interactions to explain colour perception, sight, communication technologies, and the effects of different surfaces on wave behaviour

22. Physical Science · A simple wave model has a repeating pattern with specific wavelength, frequency, and amplitude and mechanical waves need a medium through which they are transmitted. This model can

  1. Waves & How They Move: Develop a model of waves to describe patterns in terms of amplitude and wavelength, and understand that waves can cause objects to move

23. Physical Science · When two objects interact, each one exerts a force on the other that can cause energy to be transferred to and from the object.

  1. What happens when things collide: Ask questions and predict outcomes about the changes in energy that occur when objects collide

24. Physical Science · Energy changes to and from each type can be tracked through physical or chemical interactions. The relationship between the temperature and the total energy of a system depends on t

  1. Energy stores and transfers: Identify the main energy stores (kinetic, gravitational potential, elastic potential, thermal, chemical, nuclear, electromagnetic) and the pathways by which energy is transferred between stores (mechanically, electrically, by heating, by radiation)
  2. Building an energy-converting device: Apply scientific ideas to design, test, and refine a device that converts energy from one form to another

25. Physical Science · Kinetic energy can be distinguished from the various forms of potential energy.

  1. Speed and energy: Use evidence to construct an explanation relating the speed of an object to the energy of that object

26. Physical Science · Forces that act a distance (gravitational, electric, and magnetic) can be explained by force fields that extend through space and can be mapped by their effect on a test object.

  1. Gravity & Falling Objects: Explain that unsupported objects fall towards the Earth because of the force of gravity acting between the Earth and the falling object
  2. Electromagnets: Describe the magnetic effect of an electric current (a current-carrying wire produces a magnetic field), and investigate how the strength of an electromagnet depends on current, number of coil turns, and core material

27. Physical Science · Motion is described relative to a reference frame that must be shared with others and is determined by the sum of the forces acting on it. The greater the mass of the object, the gr

  1. Relative Motion: Explain relative motion — how the apparent speed and direction of an object depends on the observer's own motion — using everyday examples such as trains and cars passing

28. Physical Science · Reacting substances rearrange to form different molecules, but the number of atoms is conserved. Some reactions release energy and others absorb energy.

  1. Reactions That Release or Absorb Heat: Distinguish between exothermic reactions (release energy, temperature rises) and endothermic reactions (absorb energy, temperature falls), with everyday and industrial examples
  2. Physical vs Chemical Changes: Distinguish between physical changes (reversible, no new substances formed) and chemical changes (new substances formed, often irreversible), using conservation of mass to understand both types

29. Physical Science · The fact that matter is composed of atoms and molecules can be used to explain the properties of substances, diversity of materials, states of matter and phases changes.

  1. Matter Is Made of Particles: Develop a model to describe that matter is made of particles too small to be seen, and that this explains properties of solids, liquids, and gases