(National Science Education Standards, Natonal Academy of Sciences, National Academy Press, 1996)

Unifying Concepts and Processes

• Systems, order and organization
• Evidence, models and explanation
• Form and Function

Content Standard A: Science as Inquiry

Students should develop abilities necessary to do scientific inquiry.

• Identify questions that can be answered through scientific investigations.

Students should design and conduct scientific investigation.

• Use appropriate tools and techniques to gather, analyze and interpret data.
• Develop descriptions ,explanations, predictions, and models using evidence.
• Think critically and logically to make the relationships between evidence and explanations.
• Recognize and analyze alternative explanations and predictions. Communicate scientific procedures and explanations.
• Use mathematics in all aspects of scientific inquiry.

Students should develop understandings about scientific inquiry.

• Different kinds of questions suggest different kinds of scientific investigations.
• Current scientific knowledge and understanding guide scientific investigations.
• Mathematics is important in all aspects of inquiry.
• Technology used to gather data enhances accuracy and allows scientists to analyze and quantify results of their investigation.
• Scientific explanations emphasize evidence, have logically consistent arguments, and use scientific principles, models, and theories.
• Science advances through legitimate skepticism.
• Scientific investigations sometimes result in new ideas and phenomena for study....

Content Standard B: Physical Science

All students should develop an understanding of motions and forces.

• The motion of an object can be described by its position, direction of motion, and speed. That motion can be measured and represented on a graph.
• An object that is not being subjected to a force will continue to move at a constant speed and in a straight line.
• If more than one force acts on an object along a straight line, then the forces will reinforce or cancel one another, depending on their direction and magnitude. Unbalanced forces will cause changes in the speed or direction of an object's motion.

Content Standard E: Science and Technology

All students should develop understandings about science and technology.

• Many different people in different cultures have made and continue to make contributions to science and technology.
• Science and technology are reciprocal.
• Perfectly designed solutions do not exist.
• Technological designs have constraints.
• Technological solutions have intended benefits and unintended consequences. Some consequences can be predicted, others cannot.

Content Standard F: Science in Personal and Social Perspectives

All students should develop an understanding of science and technology in society.

• Science influences society through its knowledge and world view. societal challenges often inspire questions for scientific research ....
• Technology influences society through its products and processes.
• Science and technology have advanced through contributions of many different people, in different cultures, at different times in history.
• Scientists and engineers work in many different settings ....

Content Standard G: History and Nature of Science

All students should develop an understanding of science as a human endeavor.

• Women and men of various social and ethnic backgrounds engage in the activities of science, engineering ... Some engineers work in teams, and some work alone, but all communicate extensively with others.
• Science requires different abilities, depending on such factors as the field of study and type of inquiry.

All students should develop an understanding of the Nature of Science.

• Scientists formulate and test their explanations of nature using observation, experiments, and theoretical and mathematical models.
• It is part of scientific inquiry to evaluate the results of scientific investigations, experiments, observations, theoretical models, and the explanations proposed by other scientists.

All students should develop an understanding of the History of Science.

• Many individuals have contributed to the traditions of science. In historical perspective, science has been practiced by different individuals in different cultures.
• Tracing the history of science can show how difficult it was for scientific innovators to break through the accepted ideas of their time to reach the conclusions that we currently take for granted.