Massachusetts Learning Standards Related to Renewable Energy and Global Warming Curricula
[Note: The following science and engineering/technology, mathematics, and history and social science standards were extracted from the Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks because they are related, or could be tied in to, to lessons about renewable energy or global warming topics. They are based on the latest frameworks as of March, 2004. Consult the home page of the Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks for revisions.]
Bold = core standards for full-year courses
* = core standards for integrated courses
Curriculum Table of Contents |
Science and Engineering/Technology
ENGINEERING & TECHNOLOGY
Grades 6-8
1. Materials, Tools, and Machines
1.1 Given a design task, identify appropriate materials (e.g., wood, paper, plastic, aggregates, ceramics, metals, solvents, adhesives) based on specific properties and characteristics (e.g., weight, strength, hardness, and flexibility).
2. Engineering Design
Broad Concept: Engineering design is an iterative process involving modeling and optimizing for developing technological solutions to problems within given constraints.
2.1 Identify and explain the steps of the engineering design process, i.e., identify the need or problem, research the problem, develop possible solutions, select the best possible solution(s), construct a prototype, test and evaluate, communicate the solution(s), and redesign.
2.2 Demonstrate methods of representing solutions to a design problem, e.g., sketches, orthographic projections, multiview drawings.
2.3 Describe and explain the purpose of a given prototype.
Grades 9-10
1. Engineering Design
Broad Concept: Engineering design involves practical problem solving, research, development, and invention and requires designing, drawing, building, testing, and redesigning.
1.1 Identify and explain the steps of the engineering design process, i.e., identify the problem, research the problem, develop possible solutions, select the best possible solution(s), construct a prototype, test and evaluate, communicate the solution(s), and redesign.
1.2 Demonstrate knowledge of pictorial and multi-view drawings using proper techniques.
2. Construction Technologies
2.4 Identify and explain the engineering properties of materials used in structures, e.g., elasticity, plasticity, thermal conductivity, density.
3. Energy & Power Technologies–Fluid Systems
Broad Concept: Fluid systems are made up of liquids or gases and allow force to be transferred from one location to another. They also provide water, gas, and oil, and remove waste. They can be moving or stationary and have associated pressures and velocities.
3.1 Differentiate between open (e.g., irrigation, forced hot air system) and closed (e.g., forced hot water system, hydroponics) fluid systems and their components such as valves, controlling devices, and metering devices.
3.2 Identify and explain sources of resistance (e.g., 45o elbow, 90o elbow, type of pipes, changes in diameter) for water moving through a pipe.
3.3 Explain Bernoulli’s Principle and its effect on practical applications, i.e., airfoil design, spoiler design, carburetor.
3.4 Differentiate between hydraulic and pneumatic systems and provide examples of appropriate applications of each as they relate to manufacturing and transportation systems.
3.5 Explain the relationship between velocity and cross-sectional areas in the movement of a fluid.
3.6 Solve problems related to hydrostatic pressure and depth in fluid systems.
4. Energy & Power Technologies – Thermal Systems
4.1 Differentiate among conduction, convection, and radiation in a thermal system.
4.2 Give examples of how conduction, convection, and radiation are used in the selection of materials, e.g., home and vehicle thermostat designs, circuit breakers.
4.4 Explain how environmental conditions influence heating and cooling of buildings and automobiles.
Figure 1
Steps of the Engineering Design Process
1. Identify the need or problem
2. Research the need or problem
- Examine current state of the issue and current solutions
- Explore other options via the internet, library, interviews, etc.
3. Develop possible solution(s)
- Brainstorm possible solutions
- Draw on mathematics and science
- Articulate the possible solutions in two and three dimensions
- Refine the possible solutions
4. Select the best possible solution(s)
- Determine which solution(s) best meet(s) the original requirements
5. Construct a prototype
- Model the selected solution(s) in two and three dimensions
6. Test and evaluate the solution(s)
- Does it work?
- Does it meet the original design constraints?
7. Communicate the solution(s)
- Make an engineering presentation that includes a discussion of how the solution(s) best meet(s) the needs of the initial problem, opportunity, or need
- Discuss societal impact and tradeoffs of the solution(s)
8. Redesign
Overhaul the solution(s) based on information gathered during the tests and presentation
Grades 6-8
Heat Transfer in the Earth System
3. Differentiate among radiation, conduction, and convection, the three mechanisms by which heat is transferred through the earth’s system.
4. Explain the relationship among the energy provided by the sun, the global patterns of atmospheric movement, and the temperature differences among water, land, and atmosphere.
Grades 9-10
1. Matter and Energy in the Earth System
Broad Concept: The earth has internal and external sources of energy. The sun is the major external source of energy while the primary sources of internal energy are generated through radioactive decay and gravitational attraction from the earth's original formation.
1.1 Identify the earth’s principal sources of internal and external energy, e.g., radioactive decay, gravity, solar energy.
Broad Concept: Two fundamental energy concepts included in the earth system are gravity and electromagnetism.
1.2 Describe the components of the electromagnetic spectrum and give examples of its impact on our lives.
Broad Concept: Global atmospheric processes are driven by energy from the sun, unequal heating between the equator and poles, the earth’s rotation and revolution, and the influence of land and water. Human affairs can dramatically influence and be influenced by atmospheric phenomena.
1.5 Explain how the transfer of energy through radiation, conduction, and convection contributes to global atmospheric processes, e.g., storms, winds. *
1.6 Explain how the layers of the atmosphere affect the dispersal of incoming radiation through reflection, absorption, and reradiation.
1.7 Provide examples of how the unequal heating of the earth and the Coriolis Effect influence global circulation patterns, and show their impact on Massachusetts weather and climate, e.g., convection cells, trade winds, westerlies, polar easterlies, land/sea breezes, mountain/valley breezes.
1.8 Describe how the inclination of the incoming solar radiation can impact the amount of energy received by a given surface area.
Broad Concept: Oceans redistribute matter and energy around the earth, through surface and deepwater currents, tides, waves, and interaction with other earth spheres.
1.11 Explain the dynamics of oceanic currents, including upwelling, density, and deep water currents, the local Labrador Current and the Gulf Stream, and their relationship to global circulation within the marine environment and climate. *
1.14 Explain how scientists study the earth system through the use of a combination of ground-based observations, satellite observations, and computer models of the earth system, and why it is necessary to use all of these tools together.
2. The Earth’s Sources of Energy
Broad Concept: Numerous earth resources are used to sustain human affairs. The abundance and accessibility of these resources can influence their use.
2.1 Recognize, describe, and differentiate between renewable (e.g., solar, wind, water, biomass) and nonrenewable (e.g., fossil fuels, nuclear [Ura-235]) sources of energy.
2.2 Explain the advantage and limitations of renewable sources of energy.
2.3 Explain the advantage and limitations of nonrenewable sources of energy.
2.4 Describe ways in which people have tried to control the use of renewable and nonrenewable sources of energy, e.g., scientific advances, prices.
2.5 Describe the effects on the environment of using both renewable and nonrenewable sources of energy.
2.6 Describe ways in which scientists are addressing effects on the environment of using both renewable and nonrenewable sources of energy, e.g., creation of new technologies.
3. Earth Processes and Cycles
Broad Concept: Interactions among the lithosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere have resulted in ongoing evolution of the earth system over geologic time.
3.1 Explain that weather is the most significant source of erosion and how both physical and chemical weathering lead to the formation of sediments and soils, affect the shape of rocks, and create specific landscapes depending on what weathering process is dominant under a specific climate.
3.2 Describe how glaciers, gravity, wind, temperature changes, waves, and rivers cause weathering and erosion. Give examples of how the effects of these processes can be seen in our local environment. *
3.3 Explain the nitrogen and carbon cycles and their roles in the improvement of soils for agriculture.
Broad Concept: Water is continually being recycled by the hydrologic cycle through the watersheds, oceans, and the atmosphere by processes such as evaporation, condensation, precipitation, runoff, and infiltration. This life-giving cycle is continually and increasingly impacted by human affairs.
3.6 Explain how water flows into and through a watershed, e.g., aquifers, wells, porosity, permeability, water table, capillary water, runoff. *
3.7 Compare and contrast the processes of the hydrologic cycle including evaporation, condensation, precipitation, surface runoff and groundwater percolation, infiltration, and transpiration.
Broad Concept: The earth is a system of interacting spherical layers with each layer having distinct characteristic compositions, physical properties, and processes.
3.13 Explain how the Van Allen Belts protect the biosphere
Grades 6-8
Living Things and Their Environment
13. Give examples of ways in which organisms interact and have different functions within an ecosystem that enable the ecosystem to survive.
Changes in Ecosystems Over Time
14. Identify ways in which ecosystems have changed throughout geologic time in response to physical conditions, interactions among organisms, and the actions of humans. Describe how changes may be catastrophes such as volcanic eruptions or ice storms.
15. Recognize that biological evolution accounts for the diversity of species developed through gradual processes over many generations.
Grades 9-10
6. Ecology
Broad Concept: Ecology is the interaction between living organisms and their environment.
6.1 Explain how biotic and abiotic factors cycle in an ecosystem (water, carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen).
6.4 Analyze changes in an ecosystem resulting from natural causes, changes in the climate, human activity, or introduction of non-native species.
PHYSICAL SCIENCES (CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS)
Grades 6-8
Heat Energy
14. Recognize that heat is a form of energy and that temperature change results from adding or taking away heat from a system
16. Give examples of how heat moves in predictable ways, moving from warmer objects to cooler ones until they reach equilibrium.
Chemistry, Grades 10 or 11
2. Atomic Structure
Broad Concept: An atom is a discrete unit. The atomic model can help us to understand the interaction of elements and compounds observed on a macroscopic scale.
4. Chemical Bonding
Broad Concept: Atoms form bonds by the interactions of their valence electrons.
9. Equilibrium and Kinetics
9.3 Identify the factors that affect the rate of a chemical reaction and the factors that can cause a shift in equilibrium.
10. Thermochemistry (Enthalpy)
Broad Concept: The driving forces of chemical reactions are energy and entropy. This has important implications for many applications (synthesis of new compounds, meteorology, and industrial engineering).
10.1 Interpret the law of conservation of energy.
10.2 Explain the relationship between energy transfer and disorder in the universe.
10.3 Analyze the energy changes involved in physical and chemical processes using calorimetry.
10.4 Apply Hess’s law to determine the heat of reaction.
Physics, Grade 9 or 10
1. Motion and Forces
Broad Concept: Newton’s laws of motion and gravitation describe and predict the motion of most objects.
2. Conservation of Energy and Momentum
2.2 Provide examples of how energy can be transformed from kinetic to potential and vice versa.
3. Heat and Heat Transfer
Broad Concept: Heat is energy that is transferred between bodies that are at different temperatures by the processes of convection, conduction, and/or radiation.
3.1 Relate thermal energy to molecular motion. *
3.2 Differentiate between specific heat and heat capacity.
3.3 Explain the relationship among temperature change in a substance for a given amount of heat transferred, the amount (mass) of the substance, and the specific heat of the substance.
3.4 Recognize that matter exists in four phases, and explain what happens during a phase change.
Grades 5-6
NUMBER SENSE & OPERATIONS
6.N.9 Select and use appropriate operations to solve problems involving addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and positive integer exponents with whole numbers, and with positive fractions, mixed numbers, decimals, and percents.
6.N.13 Accurately and efficiently add, subtract, multiply, and divide (with double-digit divisors) whole numbers and positive decimals.
6.N.14 Accurately and efficiently add, subtract, multiply, and divide positive fractions and mixed numbers. Simplify fractions.
6.N.16 Estimate results of computations with whole numbers, and with positive fractions, mixed numbers, decimals, and percents. Describe reasonableness of estimates.
PATTERNS, RELATIONS & ALGEBRA
6.P.1 Replace variables with given values and evaluate/simplify, e.g., 2(m) + 3 when m = 4.
6.P.4 Represent real situations and mathematical relationships with concrete models, tables, graphs, and rules in words and with symbols, e.g., input-output tables.
6.P.6 Produce and interpret graphs that represent the relationship between two variables in everyday situations.
6.P.7 Identify and describe relationships between two variables with a constant rate of change. Contrast these with relationships where the rate of change is not constant.
MEASUREMENT
6.M.1 Apply the concepts of perimeter and area to the solution of problems. Apply formulas where appropriate.
6.M.3 Solve problems involving proportional relationships and units of measurement, e.g., same system unit conversions, scale models, maps, and speed.
DATA ANALYSIS, STATISTICS & PROBABILITY
6.D.1 Describe and compare data sets using the concepts of median, mean, mode, maximum and minimum, and range.
6.D.2 Construct and interpret stem-and-leaf plots, line plots, and circle graphs.
GEOMETRY
- Identify polygons and 3-dimensional shapes based on their properties
- Identify relationships among points, lines and planes (intersecting, parallel, perpendicular, etc.)
- Graph points, identify coordinates
- Distance between points or lines
- Congruence
Grades 7-8
NUMBER SENSE & OPERATIONS
8.N.3 Use ratios and proportions in the solution of problems, in particular, problems involving unit rates, scale factors, and rate of change.
8.N.10 Estimate and compute with fractions (including simplification of fractions), integers, decimals, and percents (including those greater than 100 and less than 1).
8.N.12 Select and use appropriate operations—addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and positive integer exponents—to solve problems with rational numbers (including negatives).
PATTERNS, RELATIONS & ALGEBRA
8.P.5 Identify the slope of a line as a measure of its steepness and as a constant rate of change from its table of values, equation, or graph. Apply the concept of slope to the solution of problems.
8.P.8 Explain and analyze—both quantitatively and qualitatively, using pictures, graphs, charts, or equations—how a change in one variable results in a change in another variable in functional relationships, e.g., C = pd, A = pr2 (A as a function of r), Arectangle = lw (Arectangle as a function of l and w).
8.P.10 Use tables and graphs to represent and compare linear growth patterns. In particular, compare rates of change and x- and y-intercepts of different linear patterns.
DATA ANALYSIS, STATISTICS & PROBABILITY
8.D.2 Select, create, interpret, and utilize various tabular and graphical representations of data, e.g., circle graphs, Venn diagrams, scatterplots, stem-and-leaf plots, box-and-whisker plots, histograms, tables, and charts. Differentiate between continuous and discrete data and ways to represent them.
8.D.3 Find, describe, and interpret appropriate measures of central tendency (mean, median, and mode) and spread (range) that represent a set of data. Use these notions to compare different sets of data.
GEOMETRY
- Sides and angles of polygons
- Congruence and similarity
- Angles formed by intersecting lines
- Pythagorean theorem
- Use straightedge, compass and other tools to formulate and test
Grades 9-10
NUMBER SENSE & OPERATIONS
10.N.4 Use estimation to judge the reasonableness of results of computations and of solutions to problems involving real numbers.
PATTERNS, RELATIONSHIPS & ALGEBRA
10.P.7 Solve everyday problems that can be modeled using linear, reciprocal, quadratic, or exponential functions, Apply appropriate tabular, graphical, or symbolic methods to the solutions, Include compound interest, and direct and inverse variation problems, Use technology when appropriate."
DATA ANALYSIS, STATISTICS & PROBABILITY
10.D.1 Select, create, and interpret an appropriate graphical representation (e.g., scatterplot, table, stem-and-leaf plots, box-and-whisker plots, circle graph, line graph, and line plot) for a set of data and use appropriate statistics (e.g., mean, median, range, and mode) to communicate information about the data. Use these notions to compare different sets of data.
GEOMETRY
- Identify figures using properties of sides, angles,and diagonals.
- Draw congruent and similar figures.
- Constructions.
- Angles formed by transversals of coplanar lines.
- Central and inscribed angles, minor and major arcs, radii, chords.
- Triangle problems.
- Lines, Midpoints, slopes, distances.
- Linear equations (and graphing lines).
Grades 11-12
DATA ANALYSIS, STATISTICS & PROBABILTY
12.D.2 Select an appropriate graphical representation for a set of data and use appropriate statistics (e.g., quartile or percentile distribution) to communicate information about the data.
GEOMETRY
Sine, cosine, tangent.
Trigonometric identities.
Page 11 identifies a main theme of the History and Social Science Frameworks: “the development of scientific reasoning, technology, and formal education over time, and their effect on people’s health, standards of living, economic growth, government, religious beliefs, communal life, and the environment.”
Grade 6
ECONOMICS
11. Give examples of products that are traded among nations, and examples of barriers to trade in these or other products. (E)
12. Define supply and demand and describe how changes in supply and demand affect prices of specific products. (E)
Grade 12
ECONOMICS (Elective)
E.1.1 Define each of the productive resources (natural, human, capital) and explain why they are necessary for the production of goods and services.
E.1.2 Explain how consumers and producers confront the condition of scarcity by making choices that involve opportunity costs and tradeoffs.
E.2.1 Define supply and demand.
E.2.2 Describe the role of buyers and sellers in determining the equilibrium price.
E.2.6 Demonstrate how supply and demand determine equilibrium price and quantity in the product, resource, and financial markets.
E.2.7 Identify factors that cause changes in market supply and demand.
E.2.8 Demonstrate how changes in supply and demand influence equilibrium price and quantity in the product, resource, and financial markets.
E.2.10 Use concepts of price elasticity of demand and supply to explain and predict changes in quantity as price changes.