Science Essential Standards

4th  Grade  - Science as Inquiry 
As students progress through the grade levels, their strategies for finding solutions to questions improve as they gain experience conducting simple investigations and working in small groups. They are capable of asking questions and make predictions that can be tested. Students must be encouraged to make more careful observations and measure things with increasing accuracy. During investigations, students must have opportunity to use more advanced tools such as calculators, computers, graduated cylinders, scales and meter sticks to gather data and extend their senses. They must keep accurate records and run enough trials to be confident of their results to test a prediction. They must have experiences that allow them to recognize patterns in data and use data to create reasonable explanations of results of an experiment or investigation. They should be encouraged to employ more sophisticated language, drawings, models, charts and graphs tcommunicate results and explanations. Students must always use appropriate safety procedures, including listening skills, when conducting simple investigations. 
 Force and MotionExplain how various forces affect the motion of an object.
Clarifying Objectives 
4.P.1.1 Explain how magnets interact with all things made of iron and with other magnets to produce motion without touching them. 
4.P.1.2 Explain how electrically charged objects push or pull on other electrically charged objects and produce motion.
Matter: Properties and  Change 
 Understand the composition and properties of matter before and after they undergo a change or interaction.  
Clarifying Objectives: 
4.P.2.1 Compare the physical properties of samples of matter (strength, hardness, flexibility, ability to conduct heat, ability to conduct electricity, ability to be attracted by magnets, reactions to water and fire). 
4.P.2.2 Explain how minerals are identified using tests for the physical properties of hardness, color, luster, cleavage and streak. 
4.P.2.3 Classify rocks as metamorphic, sedimentary or igneous based on their composition, how they are formed and the processes that create them. 
Energy: Conservation and Transfer

interaction with matter.
 4.P.3.1 Recognize the basic forms of energy (light, sound, heat, electrical, and magnetic) as the ability to cause motion or create change. 
4.P.3.2 Recognize that light travels in a straight line until it strikes an object or travels from one medium to another, and that light can be reflected, refracted, and absorbed.
Earth in the Universe
Explain the causes of day and night and phases of the moon.
Clarifying Objectives: 
4.E.1.1 Explain the cause of day and night based on the rotation of Earth on its axis. 
4.E.1.2 Explain the monthly changes in the appearance of the moonbased on the moon’s orbit around the Earth. 
Earth History:
Understand the use of fossils and changes in the surface of the earth as evidence of the history of Earth and its changing life forms.
Clarifying Objectives:
4.E.2.1 Compare fossils (including molds, casts, and preserved parts of plants and animals) to one another and to living organisms. 
4.E.2.2 Infer ideas about Earth’s early environments from fossils of plants and animals that lived long ago. 
4.E.2.3 Give examples of how the surface of the earth changes due to slow processes such as erosion and weathering, and rapid processes such as landslides, volcanic eruptions, and earthquakes. 
 Understand the effects of environmental changes, adaptations and behaviors that enable animals (including humans) to survive in changing habitats.
 Clarifying Objectives:
4.L.1.1 Give examples of changes in an organism’s environment that are beneficial to it and some that are harmful. 
4.L.1.2 Explain how animals meet their needs by using behaviors in response to information received from the environment. 
4.L1.3 Explain how humans can adapt their behavior to live in changing habitats (e.g., recycling wastes, establishing rain gardens, planting trees and shrubs to prevent flooding and erosion). 
4.L.1.4 Explain how differences among animals of the same population sometimes give individuals an advantage in surviving and reproducing in changing habitats.
Molecular Biology
Understand food and the benefits of vitamins, minerals and exercise.
Clarifying Objectives:
4.L.2.1 Classify substances as food or non-food items based on their ability to provide energy and materials for survival, growth and repair of the body. 
4.L.2.2 Explain the role of vitamins, minerals and exercise in maintaining a healthy body.