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How to learn Grade 6: Science

Missouri academic standards: Science, Grade 6

0 of 45 concepts ready to learn · Markdown, for your AI

1. Engineering, Technology, and Application of Science · Developing Possible Solutions

  1. Comparing Possible Solutions: Generate and compare multiple possible solutions to a problem based on how well each is likely to meet the criteria and constraints

2. Engineering, Technology, and Application of Science · Defining and Delimiting Engineering Problems

  1. Simple Design Problems: Define a simple design problem reflecting a need or want that includes specified criteria for success and constraints on materials, time, or cost

3. Earth and Space Sciences · Global Climate Change

  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

4. Earth and Space Sciences · Human Impacts on Earth's Systems

  1. Human impact on environments: Use vocabulary for human impact on the environment — pollution, habitat destruction, deforestation, biodiversity, conservation, renewable energy, non-renewable energy, fossil fuel, carbon footprint, sustainability, endangered, extinct — and apply these when discussing environmental issues and human choices
  2. Communities Protecting Resources: Obtain and combine information about ways individual communities use science ideas to protect the Earth's resources and environment

5. Earth and Space Sciences · Natural Hazards

  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

6. Earth and Space Sciences · The Role of Water in Earth's Surface Processes

  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. Earth's atmosphere: Develop a model to describe ways the geosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere interact as connected Earth systems
  3. 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

7. Earth and Space Sciences · Plate Tectonics and Large-Scale Systems

  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

8. Earth and Space Sciences · Earth Materials and Systems

  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

9. Earth and Space Sciences · The History of Planet Earth

  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

10. Earth and Space Sciences · Earth and the Solar System

  1. 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

11. Earth and Space Sciences · The Universe and its Stars

  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
  2. Why We Have Seasons: Explain that the seasons are caused by the tilt of Earth's axis during its orbit around the Sun, distinguishing this from the common misconception that seasons are caused by changing distance from the Sun
  3. Phases of the Moon: Explain the phases of the Moon as the changing angle of sunlight on the lunar surface as seen from Earth, and describe how solar and lunar eclipses occur

12. Life Sciences · Adaptation

  1. 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

13. Life Sciences · Natural Selection

  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. 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

14. Life Sciences · Evidence of Common Ancestry and Diversity

  1. Fossils as Evidence: Analyse and interpret data from fossils to provide evidence of organisms and environments that existed long ago
  2. Evidence for Evolution: Describe the main types of evidence for evolution: the fossil record (change over time), comparative anatomy (homologous structures), and the geographic distribution of related species

15. Life Sciences · Ecosystems Dynamics, Functioning and Resilience

  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)

16. Life Sciences · Cycles of matter and Energy Transfer in Ecosystems

  1. Matter Cycling in Ecosystems: Develop a model to describe the movement of matter among plants, animals, decomposers, and the environment in an ecosystem

17. Life Sciences · Interdependent Relationships in Ecosystems

  1. Food Webs & Interdependence: Construct and interpret food webs showing the interdependence of organisms in an ecosystem, explaining how a change in one population affects others

18. Life Sciences · Organization for Matter and Energy Flow in Organisms

  1. 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 Sciences · Growth and Development of Organisms

  1. Structures for Survival: Construct an argument that plants and animals have internal and external structures that function to support survival, growth, behaviour, and reproduction

20. Life Sciences · Structure and Function

  1. Circulation & Breathing Together: Understand how the circulatory and respiratory systems work together: the lungs oxygenate the blood, the heart pumps it around the body, cells use the oxygen and produce carbon dioxide waste, and the blood carries the waste back to the lungs to be breathed out
  2. Cells to Organ Systems: Describe the hierarchical organisation of multicellular organisms: cells → tissues → organs → organ systems → organism
  3. 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
  4. Single-Celled Organisms: Explain how unicellular organisms such as bacteria and Amoeba carry out all the functions of life within a single cell

21. Physical Sciences · Wave Properties

  1. Wave Properties & Types: Describe waves in terms of amplitude, wavelength, frequency, and wave speed; distinguish transverse waves (oscillation perpendicular to direction of travel) from longitudinal waves (oscillation parallel); and use the wave equation v = fλ
  2. 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 Sciences · Conservation of Energy and Energy Transfer

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

23. Physical Sciences · Definitions of Energy

  1. Power: watts and energy per second: Define power as the rate of energy transfer (power = energy ÷ time, measured in watts), and compare energy transfer rates in different everyday contexts
  2. Building an energy-converting device: Apply scientific ideas to design, test, and refine a device that converts energy from one form to another
  3. 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)

24. Physical Sciences · Types of Interaction

  1. 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

25. Physical Sciences · Forces and Motion

  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
  2. Force & Motion Vocabulary: Use technical vocabulary for force and motion — balanced forces, unbalanced forces, resultant force, acceleration, deceleration, speed, moment, lever, fulcrum, mechanical advantage — and apply these when explaining and predicting how forces affect the motion and position of objects

26. Physical Sciences · Chemical reactions

  1. 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
  2. Types of Chemical Reaction: Identify and describe four types of chemical reaction: combustion (burning in oxygen), oxidation (gain of oxygen), thermal decomposition (breaking down by heat), and displacement (more reactive metal replaces less reactive one)

27. Physical Sciences · Structure and Properties of Matter

  1. How Materials Change State: Explain melting, freezing, boiling, condensing, and sublimation using the particle model, interpreting heating and cooling curves to identify melting and boiling points
  2. 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
  3. Atoms, Elements & Compounds: Explain the differences between atoms, elements, and compounds; describe the simple Bohr model of the atom (nucleus with protons and neutrons, electrons in shells); and write and interpret chemical symbols and simple formulae
  4. Pure Substances & Mixtures: Distinguish between pure substances and mixtures, identify formulations as useful mixtures with precise compositions, and use melting and boiling points to test for purity