First Quarter

Science Process Skills: this is an activity-based unit in which students carry out laboratory experiences on a daily basis in order to learn and practive the problem-solving/critical thinking skills such as hypothesizing, predicting, inferring, classification, controlling variables, interpreting data, and designing experiments.

Second Quarter

Chemistry: This unit will provide an introduction to the structure of matter. Concepts to be studied include atomic structure; atoms, molecules and chemical equations; and chemical vs. physical change.

Density: Unit III: Density (approx 2 - 3 weeks) We will look specifically at how the volume and the mass of both a solid and a liquid are measured before putting these concepts together to calculate density. We will explore the difference in density between substances and objects that are common in students' lives.

Third Quarter

Light and Sight: All aspects of human vision will be studied, including the structures of the human eye, vision correction, and the properties of visual enhancements such as 3-D glasses and polarizing filters. The unit includes dissection of a cow eye.

Fourth Quarter

The Physics of Motion: (approx. 4 weeks) This Unit will cover the concepts of velocity and acceleration, looking at the difference between speed and velocity, and the difference between constant and changing motion. Students will look at modeling the motion of an object algebraically, numerically, and graphically.

Ecology: this is an introductory unit to ecology, covering basic principles of ecology and plant growth.