Science 7

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Welcome

Listed below are our essential standards, which also provide a good general idea of the course sequence. The syllabus and other main documents are attached. You'll also find links to the unit pages, where you can download handouts, lab write-up templates, powerpoints, and other media used in class.

Course Description

Prerequisite: None
Co-requisite: None

Students will learn:

• About the nature of cells, the organelles within them, and how they reproduce.
• About genetics, how variation is introduced, and how traits are passed down.
• The geologic history of the Earth, and multiple lines of evidence for the Theory of Evolution.
• Phylogeny and the diversity of life.
• How matter and energy are transferred within an ecosystem and what factors limit population size.
• Animal anatomy in a series of dissections.
• About the form, function, and common ailments of human organ systems.

Reading comprehension is emphasized through challenging and technical scientific literature. Vocabulary development strategies will also be taught and used extensively.

Course Materials:
Focus on California Life Science. Coolidge-Stolz, Cronkite, Jenner, Pasachoff, Wysession. 2008. Pearson Prentice Hall.

Essential Standards and Resource Links

Investigation and Experimentation	Students can distinguish between a variable and controlled parameter in a test, and can evaluate the accuracy and reproducibility of data, graph data, and solve equations algebraically. Students can read and write scientific material.
Cell Biology	Students understand cell theory, metabolisms, and categories of organic compounds. Students know the functions organelles carry out (nucleus, ribosome, mitochondria, chloroplast, mitochondria) Students can differentiate between plant eukaryote, animal eukaryote, and prokaryotic cells, and between stem and specialized cells, and between haploid and diploid cells, and understand the difference between types of cell division, sexual reproduction, and asexual reproduction.
Genetics	Students understand the relationships between DNA, genes, chromosomes, alleles, and traits and can use genetics tools to understand outcomes and patterns in trait inheritance.
Evolution	Students understand that evidence from geologic layers and radioactive dating inform the age of the Earth and life on Earth, and that the position of the Earth’s continents and oceans and prominent life forms has changed over time. Students understand how natural selection and variation account for both the diversity of species and gradual change over time, and how the theory of evolution is supported by evidence from geology, fossils, embryology, comparative anatomy, genetic phylogeny, and other sources.
Ecology	Students know that the number and types of organisms an ecosystem can support depends on abiotic, biotic, and limiting factors, that energy is stored and lost in a food web\energy pyramid, and that its stability depends on its producers and decomposers.
Physiology	Students understand the role and hierarchy of cells, tissues, organs, organ systems, and organisms. Students are familiar with the form and functions of the organ systems: circular and respiratory (subtopic: pressure), immune and lymphatic, nervous and endocrine (subtopics: neural networks, negative feedback systems), skeletal and muscle, and reproductive.
Phylogeny	Students know how to construct a branching diagram to classify living groups of organisms by shared derived characteristics, and expand the diagram to include fossils. They are familiar at multiple levels with animals, and also know the form and function of flowering plants including their reproductive and vascular systems.