Grade Level & Subject: 7^th Grade Science		Curriculum Map	Year 2004-2005
Calendar	August	September	October/November
	First Nine Weeks - August - October
Possible Resources	Life Science, Glencoe, 2002
Nine Weeks Focus	Chapters 1 (4-35) Science Chapters 24 (690-717) Interactions Chapters 25 (718-745) Non Living Chapters 26 (746-775 Biomes Wild Sites Activities Introduction to Metric System *To temporarily address the problem of focused textbook content, 7^th grade teachers are responsible for teaching 6^th, 7^th and 8^th grade indicators of the Life Science standards during the 7^th grade year. This plan will be revised before the year-end state achievement tests in science are implemented. The indicators are marked by grade level.
Skills/Standards	Earth and Space Sciences 8. Describe how temperature and precipitation determine climatic zones (biomes) (e.g., desert, grasslands, forests, tundra and alpine). Life Sciences 2. Investigate how organisms or populations may interact with one another through symbiotic relationships and how some species have become so adapted to each other that neither could survive without the other (e.g., predator-prey, parasitism, mutualism and commensalism). 3. Explain how the number of organisms an ecosystem can support depends on adequate biotic (living) resources (e.g., plants, animals) and abiotic (non-living) resources (e.g., light, water and soil). 4. Investigate how overpopulation impacts an ecosystem. 5. Explain that some environmental changes occur slowly while others occur rapidly (e.g., forest and pond succession, fires and decomposition). 6. Summarize the ways that natural occurrences and human activity affect the transfer of energy in Earth's ecosystems (e.g., fire, hurricanes, roads and oil spills). 3. Explain how variations in structure, behavior or physiology allow some organisms to enhance their reproductive success and survival in a particular environment. (8^th) 4. Recognize that an individual organism does not live forever; therefore reproduction is necessary for the continuation of every species and traits are passed on to the next generation through reproduction. (6^th) 8. Describe how organisms may interact with one another. (6^th) Physical Sciences Science and Technology Scientific Inquiry 1. Explain that variables and controls can affect the results of an investigation and that ideally one variable should be tested at a time; however it is not always possible to control all variables. 2. Identify simple independent and dependent variables. 3. Formulate and identify questions to guide scientific investigations that connect to science concepts and can be answered through scientific investigations. 4. Choose the appropriate tools and instruments and use relevant safety procedures to complete scientific investigations. 5. Analyze alternative scientific explanations and predictions and recognize that there may be more than one good way to interpret a given set of data. 6. Identify faulty reasoning and statements that go beyond the evidence or misinterpret the evidence. 7. Use graphs, tables and charts to study physical phenomena and infer mathematical relationships between variables (e.g., speed and density). Scientific Ways of Knowing 1. Show that the reproducibility of results is essential to reduce bias in scientific investigations. 2. Describe how repetition of an experiment may reduce bias. 3. Describe how the work of science requires a variety of human abilities and qualities that are helpful in daily life (e.g., reasoning, creativity, skepticism and openness). A C A D E M I C C O N T E N T S TA N D A R D S
Assessments