Pushes and Pulls; | CO | Academic Standards | Kindergarten | SC.K.1.1 | Pushes and pulls can have different strengths and directions, and can change the speed or direction of an object’s motion or start or stop it. | 1 |
Sunlight Warms the Earth; | CO | Academic Standards | Kindergarten | SC.K.1.2 | Sunlight affects the Earth’s surface. | 1 |
Living vs. Non-Living Things; Plants Need Water And Light; Animals Need Food; | CO | Academic Standards | Kindergarten | SC.K.2.1 | To live and grow, animals obtain food they need from plants or other animals, and plants need water and light. | 1 |
Introduction to Weather; Reducing Our Impact on Earth; | CO | Academic Standards | Kindergarten | SC.K.3.1 | Patterns are observed when measuring the local weather, including how humans and other organisms impact their environment. | 1 |
Habitats; | CO | Academic Standards | Kindergarten | SC.K.3.2 | Plants and animals meet their needs in their habitats and impact one another; people can prepare for severe weather. | 1 |
Introduction to Sound; | CO | Academic Standards | First Grade | SC.1.1.1 | Sound can make matter vibrate and vibrating matter can make sound. | 1 |
External Animal Parts; Parts of a Plant; Inspired by Nature (Biomimicry); | CO | Academic Standards | First Grade | SC.1.2.1 | All organisms have external parts that they use to perform daily functions. | 1 |
Introduction to Traits; | CO | Academic Standards | First Grade | SC.1.2.2 | Young organisms are very much, but not exactly, like their parents, and also resemble other organisms of the same kind. | 1 |
Patterns in the Sky; | CO | Academic Standards | First Grade | SC.1.3.1 | Patterns of movement of the sun, moon and stars as seen from Earth can be observed, described and predicted. | 1 |
Solids, Liquids and Gases; Material Properties and Purposes; | CO | Academic Standards | Second Grade | SC.2.1.1 | Matter exists as different substances that have observable different properties. | 1 |
Plant Growth Conditions; Pollination and Seed Dispersal; | CO | Academic Standards | Second Grade | SC.2.2.1 | Plants depend on water and light to grow and on animals for pollination or to move their seeds around. | 1 |
Biodiversity of Life on Earth; | CO | Academic Standards | Second Grade | SC.2.2.2 | A range of different organisms lives in different places. | 1 |
Timescale of Earth's Events; | CO | Academic Standards | Second Grade | SC.2.3.1 | Some events on Earth occur quickly; others can occur very slowly. | 1 |
Changing the Shape of Land; | CO | Academic Standards | Second Grade | SC.2.3.2 | Wind and water can change the shape of the land; models can show the shape and these changes to the land. | 1 |
Adaptations and the Environment; Ecosystems; | CO | Academic Standards | Third Grade | SC.3.2.5 | Sometimes differences in characteristics between individuals of the same species provide advantages in survival and reproduction. | 2 |
Animal Group Behavior; | CO | Academic Standards | Third Grade | SC.3.2.2 | Being part of a group helps animals obtain food, defend themselves and cope with changes. | 2 |
Animal & Plant Life Cycles; | CO | Academic Standards | Third Grade | SC.3.2.1 | Organisms have unique and diverse life cycles. | 2 |
Balanced & Unbalanced Forces; | CO | Academic Standards | Third Grade | SC.3.1.1 | Patterns of motion can be used to predict future motion. | 2 |
Collisions; | CO | Academic Standards | Fourth Grade | SC.4.1.3 | When objects collide contact forces transfer so as to change objects’ motion. | 2 |
Collisions; Energy Transfer; | CO | Academic Standards | Fourth Grade | SC.4.1.1 | The faster an object moves the more energy it has. | 2 |
Conservation of Matter; | CO | Academic Standards | Fifth Grade | SC.5.1.2 | Chemical Reactions that occur when substances are mixed can be identified by the emergence of substances with different properties; the total mass remains the same. | 2 |
Earth’s Orbit and Rotation; | CO | Academic Standards | Fifth Grade | SC.5.3.2 | Earth’s orbit and rotation and the orbit of the moon around earth cause observable patterns. | 2 |
Earth's Landscapes; Fossils & Extinction; | CO | Academic Standards | Fourth Grade | SC.4.3.1 | Earth has changed over time. | 2 |
Energy Transfer; | CO | Academic Standards | Fourth Grade | SC.4.1.2 | Energy can be moved from place to place. | 2 |
Energy Transfer; | CO | Academic Standards | Fourth Grade | SC.4.1.4 | Energy can be produced, used or released by converting stored energy. | 2 |
Extreme Weather Solutions; | CO | Academic Standards | Third Grade | SC.3.3.2 | A variety of weather hazards result from natural process; humans cannot eliminate weather-related hazards but can reduce their impacts. | 2 |
Extreme Weather Solutions; Natural Disasters; | CO | Academic Standards | Fourth Grade | SC.4.3.5 | A variety of hazards result from natural process; humans cannot eliminate natural hazards but can reduce their impacts’ effect. | 2 |
Food Webs; | CO | Academic Standards | Fifth Grade | SC.5.2.2 | Matter cycles between air and soil and among plants, animals and microbes as these organisms live and die. | 2 |
Fossils & Extinction; | CO | Academic Standards | Third Grade | SC.3.2.4 | Some living organisms resemble organisms that once lived on Earth. | 2 |
Gravity Pulls Things Down (K-2 Series) | CO | Academic Standards | Fifth Grade | SC.5.1.3 | The gravitational force of Earth acting on an object near Earth’s surface pulls that object toward the planet’s center. | 2 |
How Do We Use Food; | CO | Academic Standards | Fifth Grade | SC.5.2.1 | Plants acquire their material from growth chiefly from air and water. | 2 |
How Do We Use Food; Food Webs; | CO | Academic Standards | Fifth Grade | SC.5.1.4 | The energy released from food was once energy from the sun. | 2 |
Information Transfer; | CO | Academic Standards | Fourth Grade | SC.4.1.7 | Patterns can encode, send, receive and decode information. | 2 |
Interactions of Earth’s Spheres; | CO | Academic Standards | Fifth Grade | SC.5.3.3 | Earth’s major systems interact in multiple ways to affect Earth’s surface materials and processes. | 2 |
Light Reflection & Vision; | CO | Academic Standards | Fourth Grade | SC.4.1.6 | An object can be seen when light reflected from its surface enters the eyes. | 2 |
Magnets & Static Electricity; | CO | Academic Standards | Third Grade | SC.3.1.2 | Objects in contact exert forces on each other; electric and magnetic forces between a pair of objects do not require contact. | 2 |
Natural Disasters; | CO | Academic Standards | Fourth Grade | SC.4.3.3 | Earth’s physical features occur in patterns. | 2 |
Particle Nature of Matter; | CO | Academic Standards | Fifth Grade | SC.5.1.1 | Matter exists as particles that are too small to be seen; measurements of a variety of observable properties can be used to identify particular materials. | 2 |
Renewable vs. Nonrenewable Resources; | CO | Academic Standards | Fourth Grade | SC.4.3.4 | Energy and fuels that humans use are derived from natural sources and their use affects the environment in multiple ways. | 2 |
Structure of Living Things; Brain Processing of Senses; | CO | Academic Standards | Fourth Grade | SC.4.2.1 | Organisms have both internal and external structures that serve various functions. | 2 |
Sun and Other Stars; | CO | Academic Standards | Fifth Grade | SC.5.3.1 | Stars range greatly in size and distance from Earth, and this can explain their relative brightness. | 2 |
Variation of Traits; | CO | Academic Standards | Third Grade | SC.3.2.3 | Different organisms vary in how they look and function because they have different inherited information; the environment also affects the traits that an organism develops. | 2 |
Water Quality & Distribution; | CO | Academic Standards | Fifth Grade | SC.5.3.4 | Most of Earth’s water is in the ocean and much of Earth’s freshwater in glaciers or underground. | 2 |
Water Quality & Distribution; Interactions of Earth’s Spheres; | CO | Academic Standards | Fifth Grade | SC.5.3.5 | Societal activities have had major effects on land, ocean, atmosphere and even outer space. | 2 |
Wave Properties; | CO | Academic Standards | Fourth Grade | SC.4.1.5 | Waves are regular patterns of motion. | 2 |
Weather vs. Climate; | CO | Academic Standards | Third Grade | SC.3.3.1 | Climate describes patterns of typical weather conditions over different scales and variations; historical weather patterns can be analyzed. | 2 |
Weathering & Erosion; | CO | Academic Standards | Fourth Grade | SC.4.3.2 | Four major earth systems interact. | 2 |
Atoms & Molecules; | CO | Academic Standards | Middle School | SC.6-8.1.1 | 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. | |
Digital vs. Analog Signals; | CO | Academic Standards | Middle School | SC.6-8.1.10 | Designed technologies can transmit digital information as wave pulses. | |
Chemical Reactions; | CO | Academic Standards | Middle School | SC.6-8.1.2 | Reacting substances rearrange to form different molecules, but the number of atoms is conserved. Some reactions release energy and others absorb energy. | |
Newton’s Laws of Motion; | CO | Academic Standards | Middle School | SC.6-8.1.3 | 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 greater the force needed to achieve the same change in motion. | |
Electric & Magnetic Fields; Gravitational Forces Between Objects; | CO | Academic Standards | Middle School | SC.6-8.1.4 | 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. | |
Potential vs. Kinetic Energy; | CO | Academic Standards | Middle School | SC.6-8.1.5 | Kinetic energy can be distinguished from the various forms of potential energy. | |
Heat: Transfer of Thermal Energy; | CO | Academic Standards | Middle School | SC.6-8.1.6 | 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 the types, states and amounts of matter. | |
Newton’s Laws of Motion; | CO | Academic Standards | Middle School | SC.6-8.1.7 | When two objects interact, each one exerts a force on the other that can cause energy to be transferred to and from the object. | |
Wave Reflection, Absorption & Transmittance; | CO | Academic Standards | Middle School | SC.6-8.1.8 | 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 explain many phenomena which include light and sound. | |
Wave Reflection, Absorption & Transmittance; | CO | Academic Standards | Middle School | SC.6-8.1.9 | A wave model of light is useful to explain how light interacts with objects through a variety of properties. | |
Plant & Animal Cells; | CO | Academic Standards | Middle School | SC.6-8.2.1 | All living things are made up of cells, which is the smallest unit that can be said to be alive. | |
Natural Selection; | CO | Academic Standards | Middle School | SC.6-8.2.10 | Genetic variations among individuals in a population give some individuals an advantage in surviving and reproducing in their environment. | |
Natural Selection; | CO | Academic Standards | Middle School | SC.6-8.2.11 | Adaptation by natural selection acting over generations is one important process by which species change over time in response to changes in environmental conditions. | |
Maintaining Biodiversity; | CO | Academic Standards | Middle School | SC.6-8.2.12 | Biodiversity is the wide range of existing life forms that have adapted to the variety of conditions on Earth, from terrestrial to marine ecosystems. | |
Reproduction of Living Things; | CO | Academic Standards | Middle School | SC.6-8.2.2 | Organisms reproduce, either sexually or asexually, and transfer their genetic information to their offspring. | |
Food Webs: Cycling of Matter & Flow of Energy; | CO | Academic Standards | Middle School | SC.6-8.2.3 | Sustaining life requires substantial energy and matter inputs. | |
Multicellular Organisms; | CO | Academic Standards | Middle School | SC.6-8.2.4 | Each sense receptor responds to different inputs (electromagnetic, mechanical, chemical), transmitting them as signals that travel along nerve cells to the brain. | |
Competition in Ecosystems; Symbiosis (Interactions Between Organisms); | CO | Academic Standards | Middle School | SC.6-8.2.5 | Organisms and populations of organisms are dependent on their environmental interactions both with other living things and with nonliving. | |
Food Webs: Cycling of Matter & Flow of Energy; | CO | Academic Standards | Middle School | SC.6-8.2.6 | Ecosystems are sustained by the continuous flow of energy, originating primarily from the sun, and the recycling of matter and nutrients within the system. | |
Food Webs: Cycling of Matter & Flow of Energy; | CO | Academic Standards | Middle School | SC.6-8.2.7 | Ecosystems are dynamic in nature; their characteristics can vary over time. Disruptions to any physical or biological component of an ecosystem. | |
Reproduction of Living Things; Genes & Mutations; | CO | Academic Standards | Middle School | SC.6-8.2.8 | 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 or traits are passed from one generation to the next via genes. | |
The Fossil Record; | CO | Academic Standards | Middle School | SC.6-8.2.9 | Fossils are mineral replacements, preserved remains, or traces of organisms that lived in the past. | |
The Solar System; | CO | Academic Standards | Middle School | SC.6-8.3.1 | Motion is predictable in both solar systems and galaxies. | |
Human Impacts on the Environment; | CO | Academic Standards | Middle School | SC.6-8.3.10 | Human activities have altered the biosphere, sometimes damaging it, although changes to environments can have different impacts for different living things. | |
Intro to Climate Change; | CO | Academic Standards | Middle School | SC.6-8.3.11 | Human activities affect global warming. Decisions to reduce the impact of global warming depend on understanding climate science, engineering capabilities, and social dynamics. | |
The Solar System; Gravitational Forces Between Objects; | CO | Academic Standards | Middle School | SC.6-8.3.2 | The solar system contains many varied objects held together by gravity. Solar system models explain and predict eclipses, lunar phases, and seasons. | |
The Fossil Record; Rock Layers (Geologic Time); | CO | Academic Standards | Middle School | SC.6-8.3.3 | Rock strata and the fossil record can be used as evidence to organize the relative occurrence of major historical events in Earth’s history. | |
Tectonic Plates; | CO | Academic Standards | Middle School | SC.6-8.3.4 | Energy flows and matter cycles within and among Earth’s systems, including the sun and Earth’s interior as primary energy sources. Plate tectonics is one result of these processes. | |
Tectonic Plates; | CO | Academic Standards | Middle School | SC.6-8.3.5 | Plate tectonics is the unifying theory that explains movements of rocks at Earth’s surface and geological history. | |
Water Cycle (6-8 Version); | CO | Academic Standards | Middle School | SC.6-8.3.6 | 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 causes weathering and erosion, changing landscape features. | |
Climate Zones & Ocean Currents; | CO | Academic Standards | Middle School | SC.6-8.3.7 | Complex interactions determine local weather patterns and influence climate, including the role of the ocean. | |
Natural Resource Distribution; | CO | Academic Standards | Middle School | SC.6-8.3.8 | Humans depend on Earth’s land, ocean, atmosphere, and biosphere for different resources, many of which are limited or not renewable. Resources are distributed unevenly around the planet as a result of past geologic processes. | |
Predicting Natural Disasters; | CO | Academic Standards | Middle School | SC.6-8.3.9 | Mapping the history of natural hazards in a region and understanding related geological forces. | |