Mt. Ararat Middle School
7th GRADE Curriculum Guide
English Language Arts (ELA)
ELA 1 READING COMPREHENSION
ELA 3 WRITING ARGUMENTS
Science (NxGSS)
SCI 1 PHYSICAL SCIENCES: STRUCTURE/PROPERTIES OF MATTER, FORCES, AND INTERACTIONS
- Apply Newton’s Laws to design a solution to a problem involving the motion of two colliding objects.
- Plan an investigation to provide evidence that the change in an object’s motion depends on the sum of the forces on the object and the mass of the object.
- CONSERVATION OF MASS Develop and use a model to describe how the total number of atoms does not change in a chemical reaction and thus mass in conserved.
- Develop models to describe the atomic composition of simple molecules and extended structures.
- Undertake a design project to construct, test, and modify a device that either releases or absorbs thermal energy by chemical processes.
- Construct and present arguments using evidence to support the claim that gravitational interactions are attractive and depend on the masses of interacting objects.
- GRAVITY AND FRICTION Conduct an investigation and evaluate the experimental design to provide evidence that fields exist between objects exerting forces on each other even though the objects are not in contact.
- Gather and make sense of information to describe that synthetic materials come from natural resources and impact society.
- Analyze and interpret data on the properties of substances before and after the substances interact to determine if a chemical reaction has occurred.
- Ask questions about data to determine the factors that affect the strength of electric and magnetic forces.
SCI 2 PHYSICAL SCIENCES: ENERGY, WAVES, AND ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION
- CONSERVATION OF ENERGY Construct, use, and present arguments to support the claim that when the kinetic energy of an object changes, energy is transferred to or from the object.
- Develop a model to describe how food is rearranged through chemical reactions forming new molecules that support growth and/or release energy as this matter moves through an organism.
- Plan an investigation to determine the relationship among the energy transferred, the type of matter, the mass, and the change in the average kinetic energy of the particles as measured by the temperatures of the sample.
SCI 3 LIFE SCIENCES: STRUCTURE, FUNCTION, AND INFORMATION PROCESSING
- Develop a model to describe how food is rearranged through chemical reactions forming new molecules that support growth and/or release energy as this matter moves through an organism.
- Construct a scientific explanation based on evidence for the role of photosynthesis in the cycling of matter and flow of energy into and out of organisms.
SCI 4 LIFE SCIENCES: MATTER AND ENERGY IN ORGANISMS AND ECOSYSTEMS
- Construct arguments supported by empirical evidence that changes to physical or biological components of an ecosystem affect populations.
- Evaluate competing design solutions for maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem services.
- Construct an explanation that predicts patterns of interactions among organisms across multiple ecosystems.
- Analyze and interpret data to provide evidence for the effects of resource availability on organisms and populations of organisms in an ecosystem.
SCI 6 EARTH AND SPACE SCIENCES: EARTH, SPACE, AND THE UNIVERSE
- Analyze and interpret data to determine scale properties of objects in the solar system.
SCI 8 ENGINEERING, TECHNOLOGY, AND APPLICATION OF SCIENCE
- Analyze data from tests to determine similarities and differences among several design solutions to identify the best characteristics of each that can be combined into a new solution to better meet the criteria for success.
- Students can approximate the measurements for key benchmarks and compare those measurements in both the standard and metric systems.
- Students can compare the relative sizes of metric units of measure including units of volume, area and speed.
- Define the criteria and constraints of a design problem with sufficient precision to ensure a successful solution, taking into account relevant scientific principles and potential impacts on people and the natural environment that may limit possible solutions.
- Understand that developing solutions is part of the Design Process.
- Evaluate competing design solutions using a systematic process to determine how well they meet the criteria and constraints of the problem.
- Students can gather data and generate tables and line graphs to effectively display that data.
- Students can generate a realistic investigative question and generate a hypothesis that tests one variable to answer that question.
- Develop a model to generate data for iterative testing and modification of a proposed object, tool, or process such that an optimal design can be achieved.
- Given an experimental design, students can identify the following elements: control variables, dependent variables, independent variables, control groups, experimental groups.
- Given experimental evidence and background information, students can make a claim about data and support that claim with several pieces of evidence.
- Students can effectively report the results of their experiments.
- Problem solve and communicate by using a block-based computer programming language.
- Students can use rulers, graduated cylinders, balances, and gate-timers to measure volume, density, area, and speed.
- Create and produce a solution, product or model based on their idea using the Design Process.
- Students can create written step by step procedures including a materials list to accomplish a task.
Social Studies
SS1 APPLICATIONS OF SOCIAL STUDIES PROCESSES, KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS
Health Education and Physical Education
HE 1 HEALTH CONCEPTS
- Explain essential health concepts related to family life nutrition personal health safety and injury prevention and tobacco, alcohol and other drug use prevention.
- Explain the interrelationships of physical, mental/intellectual, emotional and social health.
- Identify causes of common adolescent disease and other health problems and describe ways to reduce, prevent, or treat them.
HE3 HEALTH PROMOTION AND RISK REDUCTION
- Demonstrate a healthy practice/behavior to maintain or improve one's own health in each of the following areas; personal hygiene; healthy eating, physical activity; and tobacco, alcohol and other drug use prevention.
- Demonstrate ways to recognize, avoid or change situations that threaten the safety of self and others and develop injury prevention and safety strategies including first aid for family and personal health.
HE4 INFLUENCES ON HEALTH
- Explain and analyze how multiple factors influence adolescent health behaviors emphasizing how perceptions of norms, culture, personal values and beliefs influence healthy and unhealthy behaviors.
HE5 ADVOCACY, DECISION-MAKING AND GOAL-SETTING SKILLS
- Apply the following effective verbal and nonverbal communication skills to enhance health: communication skills to build and maintain healthy relationships asking for assistance to enhance the health of self and others refusal and negotiation skills to avoid or reduce health risks; conflict management or conflict resolution strategies
PE1 MOVEMENT/MOTOR SKILLS AND KNOWLEDGE
- Describe the following skill related fitness components. Balance, coordination, agility and speed.
- Demonstrate correct technique for motor and manipulative skills and combine both skills during drills or modified games/physical activities.
- Demonstrates knowledge of the rules of play in various activities.
- Demonstrates use of various offensive and defensive strategies.
PE2 PHYSICAL FITNESS ACTIVITIES AND KNOWLEDGE
- Completes a health related fitness assessment that address a variety of health related fitness components.
- Actively engage in fitness activities that address the 5 health related fitness components.
- Students learn the Physiological Indicators of Exercise and how activity affects those indicators in relationship to their bodies.
PE3 PERSONAL AND SOCIAL SKILLS AND KNOWLEDGE
- Demonstrate the following cooperative and inclusive skills while participating in physical activities. Team work, appropriate response to peer pressure, managing conflict, respectful engagement of peers in activities.
- Demonstrate responsible personal behaviors while participating in physical activities.
- Describe game/activity safety rules and their purpose. Reasons for modifying those rules and possible risks associated with specific games/physical activities.
Learning Commons
COMMUNICATION AND COLLABORATION: EXCHANGING IDEAS, DEVELOPING NEW UNDERSTANDINGS, MAKING DECISIONS
- Is skilled at making decisions as a group using a variety of platforms.
CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION
- Is skilled at creating original works as a means of communicating ideas.
INVESTIGATION
- Is skilled at using the research process to answer a question by drawing on several sources in a short research project.
READING
- Is skilled at using resources outside of the Learning Commons, including the world wide web, to locate and select reading materials for personal enjoyment as well as to support inquiry and learning in specific topics and content areas.
RESPONSIBILITY: ETHICAL AND SAFE CONTRIBUTIONS, PARTICIPATION, AND BEHAVIORS
- Understands the global nature of technology and the sensitivity of information posted electronically.
- Understands print and digital information includes, or excludes, a message, bias, and point of view.
- TECHNOLOGY: TOOLS FOR KNOWLEDGEABLE CITIZENS
- Is skilled at selecting and using the appropriate tools and digital resources to accomplish a variety of tasks and to solve problems.
Visual and Performing Arts (VPA)
VPA 1 DISCIPLINARY LITERACY
- Students listen to and compare elements of music, including pitch, rhythm, tempo, dynamics, form, timbre, texture, harmony, style, and compound meter.
- Students accurately perform music from grades 1.5-3 that includes changes of tempo, key, and meter, in modest ranges with moderate technical demands, modeling proper posture and technique, alone or with others.
- Students apply accumulated knowledge of musical notation, symbols, and terminology to a music performance while performing music in grades 1-6.• Read whole, half, quarter, eighth, sixteenth, and dotted notes and rests in 2/4, 3/4, 4/4, 2/2, and 6/8 meter signatures. • Read melodies in appropriate clefs. • Apply notation symbols for pitch, rhythm, dynamics, tempo, articulation, and expression.
- Explain the design process to describe expressive qualities artists use in creating various types of 2-D and 3-D artwork.
- Prepare art works for display and articulate artistic justification for their selection.
VPA 4 AESTHETICS AND CRITICISM
- Compare how artists use selected media, techniques, and processes in communicating ideas.
VPA 5 CONNECTIONS