Science as Inquiry

Abilities necessary to do scientific inquiry

• Ask a question about objects, organisms, and events in an environment.
• Plan and conduct a simple investigation.
• Employ simple equipment and tools to gather data and extend the senses.
• Use data to construct a reasonable explanation.
• Communicate investigations and explanations.

Understandings about scientific inquiry

• Scientific investigations involve asking and answering a question and comparing the answer with what scientists already know.
• Scientists use different kinds of investigations, depending on the questions they are trying to answer.
• Simple instruments, such as magnifiers, provide more information than scientists obtain using only their senses.
• Scientists develop explanations using observations (evidence) and what they already know about the world (scientific knowledge).
• Scientists make the results of their investigations public.
• Scientists review and ask questions about the results of other scientists’ work.

Properties of objects and materials

• Objects have many observable properties, including size, weight, shape, color, and the ability to react with other substances. These properties can be measured using tools.
• Objects are made of one or more materials. Objects can be described by the properties of the materials from which they are made, and those properties can be used to separate or sort a group of objects or materials.

Light, heat, electricity, and magnetism

• Light travels in a straight line until it strikes an object.
• Magnets attract and repel each other and certain kinds of other materials.

Properties of earth materials

• Earth materials include solid rocks and soils. The varied materials have different physical and chemical properties, which make them useful in different ways, for example, as building materials and as resources for fuel. Earth materials provide many of the resources that humans use.
• Fossils provide evidence about plants and animals that lived long ago and the nature of the environment at that time.

Changes in the earth and sky

• The surface of the earth changes. Some changes are due to slow processes, such as erosion and weathering, and some changes are due to rapid processes, such as landslides, volcanic eruption, and earthquakes.

Understandings about science and technology

• People have always had questions about their world. Science is one way of answering questions and explaining the natural world.
• People have always had problems and invented tools and techniques (ways of doing something) to solve problems.
• Scientists and engineers often work in teams with different individuals doing different things that contribute to the results.
• Tools help scientists make better observations, measurements, and equipment for investigations. They help scientists see, measure, and do things that they could not otherwise see, measure, and do.

Abilities to distinguish between natural objects and objects made by humans

• Some objects occur in nature; others have been designed and made by people.
• Objects can be categorized into two groups, natural and designed.

Science in Personal and Social Perspectives

Types of resources

• Resources are things that we get from the living and nonliving environment to meet the needs and wants of a population.
• Some resources are basic materials, such as air, water, and soil; some are produced from basic resources, such as food, fuel, and building materials.
• The supply of many resources is limited.

Changes in environments

• Some environmental changes occur slowly, and others occur rapidly.

Science as a human endeavor

• Science and technology have been practiced by people for a long time.
• Men and women have made a variety of contributions throughout the history of science and technology.
• Many people choose science as a career and devote their entire lives to studying it. Many people derive great pleasure from doing science.

Unifying Concepts and Processes

Systems, order, and organization

Evidence, models, and explanation

Constancy, change, and measurement

Evolution and equilibrium

Form and function