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Middle School

Energy

 

Students who demonstrate understanding can:

Performance Expectations
 

 

Plan an investigation to determine the relationships among the energy transferred, the type of matter, the mass, and the change in the average kinetic energy of the particles as measured by the temperature of the sample. MS-PS3-4

Clarification Statement and Assessment Boundary

Clarification Statement: Examples of experiments could include comparing final water temperatures after different masses of ice melted in the same volume of water with the same initial temperature, the temperature change of samples of different materials with the same mass as they cool or heat in the environment, or the same material with different masses when a specific amount of energy is added.

Assessment Boundary: Assessment does not include calculating the total amount of thermal energy transferred.

Science and Engineering Practices

Planning and Carrying Out Investigations

Planning and carrying out investigations to answer questions or test solutions to problems in 6–8 builds on K–5 experiences and progresses to include investigations that use multiple variables and provide evidence to support explanations or design solutions.

Plan an investigation individually and collaboratively, and in the design: identify independent and dependent variables and controls, what tools are needed to do the gathering, how measurements will be recorded, and how many data are needed to support a claim. (MS-PS3-4)

Connections to Nature of Science

Science Knowledge Is Based on Empirical Evidence

Science knowledge is based upon logical and conceptual connections between evidence and explanations. (MS-PS3-4)

Disciplinary Core Ideas

PS3.A:  Definitions of Energy

Temperature is not a measure of energy; the relationship between the temperature and the total energy of a system depends on the types, states, and amounts of matter present. (MS-PS3-4)

PS3.B:  Conservation of Energy and Energy Transfer

The amount of energy transfer needed to change the temperature of a matter sample by a given amount depends on the nature of the matter, the size of the sample, and the environment. (MS-PS3-4)

Crosscutting Concepts

Scale, Proportion, and Quantity

Proportional relationships (e.g. speed as the ratio of distance traveled to time taken) among different types of quantities provide information about the magnitude of properties and processes. (MS-PS3-4)

Common Core State Standards Connections

ELA/Literacy
  • WHST.6-8.7 - Conduct short research projects to answer a question (including a self-generated question), drawing on several sources and generating additional related, focused questions that allow for multiple avenues of exploration. (MS-PS3-4)
Mathematics
  • 6.SP.B.5 - Summarize numerical data sets in relation to their context. (MS-PS3-4)
  • MP.2 - Reason abstractly and quantitatively. (MS-PS3-4)