Natures of Science Benchmark

1. •Science is a process of trying to figure out how the world works by making careful observations and trying to make sense of those observations. 1A/E2**

2. •When a science investigation is done the way it was done before, we expect to get a very similar result. 1A/P1

3. By the end of the 8th grade, students should know that

3.1. •When similar investigations give different results, the scientific challenge is to judge whether the differences are trivial or significant, and it often takes further studies to decide. 1A/M1a

3.2. •Even with similar results, scientists may wait until an investigation has been repeated many times before accepting the results as correct. 1A/M1b

3.2.1. New node

3.3. •Scientific knowledge is subject to modification as new information challenges prevailing theories and as a new theory leads to looking at old observations in a new way. 1A/M2

3.4. •Some scientific knowledge is very old and yet is still applicable today. 1A/M3

3.5. •Some matters cannot be examined usefully in a scientific way. Among them are matters that by their nature cannot be tested against observations. 1A/M4ab*

3.6. •Science can sometimes be used to inform ethical decisions by identifying the likely consequences of particular actions, but science cannot be used by itself to establish that an action is moral or immoral. 1A/M4c*

4. By the end of the 2nd grade, students should know that

4.1. •When a science investigation is done again in a different place, we expect to get a very similar result. 1A/P2*

5. By the end of the 5th grade, students should know that

6. By the end of the 12th grade, students should know that

6.1. •Science is based on the assumption that the universe is a vast single system in which the basic rules are everywhere the same and that the things and events in the universe occur in consistent patterns that are comprehensible through careful, systematic study. 1A/H1*

6.1.1. Sub task

6.1.2. Sub task

6.1.3. Sub task

6.2. •From time to time, major shifts occur in the scientific view of how things work. More often, however, the changes that take place in the body of scientific knowledge are small modifications of prior knowledge. Continuity and change are persistent features of science. 1A/H2*

6.3. •No matter how well one theory fits observations, a new theory might fit them just as well or better, or might fit a wider range of observations. 1A/H3a

6.4. •In science, the testing, revising, and occasional discarding of theories, new and old, never ends. This ongoing process leads to a better understanding of how things work in the world but not to absolute truth. 1A/H3bc*

6.5. •In matters that can be investigated in a scientific way, evidence for the value of a scientific approach is given by the improving ability of scientists to offer reliable explanations and make accurate predictions. 1A/H3d*