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    Matter and Its Interactions

Students who demonstrate understanding can:

Performance Expectations

  1. Plan and conduct an investigation to gather evidence to compare the structure of substances at the bulk scale to infer the strength of electrical forces between particles. HS-PS1-3

    Clarification Statement and Assessment Boundary

A Peformance Expectation (PE) is what a student should be able to do to show mastery of a concept. Some PEs include a Clarification Statement and/or an Assessment Boundary. These can be found by clicking the PE for "More Info." By hovering over a PE, its corresponding pieces from the Science and Engineering Practices, Disciplinary Core Ideas, and Crosscutting Concepts will be highlighted.

Science and Engineering Practices

Disciplinary Core Ideas

Crosscutting Concepts

By clicking on a specific Science and Engineering Practice, Disciplinary Core Idea, or Crosscutting Concept, you can find out more information on it. By hovering over one you can find its corresponding elements in the PEs.

Planning Curriculum

Common Core State Standards Connections

ELA/Literacy

  • RST.11-12.1 - Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of science and technical texts, attending to important distinctions the author makes and to any gaps or inconsistencies in the account. (HS-PS1-3)
  • WHST.11-12.7 - Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects to answer a question (including a self-generated question) or solve a problem; narrow or broaden the inquiry when appropriate; synthesize multiple sources on the subject, demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation. (HS-PS1-3)
  • WHST.11-12.8 - Gather relevant information from multiple authoritative print and digital sources, using advanced searches effectively; assess the strengths and limitations of each source in terms of the specific task, purpose, and audience; integrate information into the text selectively to maintain the flow of ideas, avoiding plagiarism and overreliance on any one source and following a standard format for citation. (HS-PS1-3)
  • WHST.11-12.9 - Draw evidence from informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research. (HS-PS1-3)

Mathematics

  • HSN-Q.A.1 - Use units as a way to understand problems and to guide the solution of multi-step problems; choose and interpret units consistently in formulas; choose and interpret the scale and the origin in graphs and data displays. (HS-PS1-3)
  • HSN-Q.A.3 - Choose a level of accuracy appropriate to limitations on measurement when reporting quantities. (HS-PS1-3)

Model Course Mapping

First Time Visitors

Resources & Lesson Plans

  • More resources added each week!
    A team of teacher curators is working to find, review, and vet online resources that support the standards. Check back often, as NSTA continues to add more targeted resources.
  • Short Performance Assessment- Road Runner Ice Melt- Electrical Forces between Particles

    This resource is a short performance assessment, adapted from Stanford University’s SNAP project to provide NGSS- aligned assessment on HS-PS1-3. Students are given a scenario, where they have to find out the best salt to prevent ice from formi ...

  • 9 Awesome Science Tricks Using Static Electricity! - Phenomenon

    The phenomenon from the video (9-33s)  involves charging a styrofoam plate by rubbing a cloth on it. This charged plate is repelled by another styrofoam plate and slides to the side when stacked on top of this plate. At the same time, this charg ...

  • Freezing Balloons

    The demonstration featured in this blog and video presents a puzzle for students to explain observations of the difference in behavior of four balloons - three filled with helium and the final one with air - when cooled in liquid nitrogen. Students ...

  • Surface Tension of Water

    This lesson plan (pages 14-15 of the Water Basic Lesson Plan) provides teacher guidelines for using 3-D water and ethanol molecule models to explain water’s surface tension property that results from the polar nature of the molecules by comparison wi ...

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  •  Day of Chemistry 2017 Materials

  •  Day of Chemistry 2017 Materials

  •  Day of Chemistry 2017 Materials

  •  Interactions Forum Presentation 2018.pdf

  •  Chemistry Phenomena (1).pptx

  •  Modeling the Process of Mining Silicon Through a Single ...

    The heart of this activity is a laboratory investigation that models the production of silicon. Students learn about silicon and its sources, uses, properties, importance in the fields of photovoltaics (solar cells/renewable energy) and integrated ci...

  •  Fuel Cell Animation

    This fuel cell animation demonstrates how a fuel cell uses hydrogen to produce electricity, with only water and heat as byproducts. The animation consists of four parts - an introduction, fuel cell components, chemical process, and fuel cell stack.

  •  Solar Energy

    This activity comes at the beginning of a sequence of activities in an energy module. Students observe the transfer of solar energy to different appliances with a solar cell and then they investigate the effect of using different solar sources to s...

  •  Collisional Heating

    This visualization shows the molecular interaction of infrared radiation with various gases in the atmosphere. Focus is on the interaction with C02 molecules and resultant warming of the troposphere.

  •  Greenhouse Gases - IR Spectra

    This animation allows students to explore the infrared spectra of greenhouse gases and depict the absorption spectra. Vibrational modes and Earth's energy spectrum can also be overlaid.

  •  Build and Test a Conductivity Probe with Arduino

    From TeachEngineering - Student groups construct simple conductivity probes and then integrate them into two different circuits to test the probe behavior in solutions of varying conductivity (salt water, sugar water, distilled water, tap water). The...

  •  Saltwater Circuit

    From TeachEngineering - Students build a saltwater circuit, which is an electrical circuit that uses saltwater as part of the circuit. Students investigate the conductivity of saltwater, and develop an understanding of how the amount of salt in a sol...

  •  Summary of Phase Change

    The goal of the Phase Change virtual labs is to allow students to investigate into the phases of matter. Students conduct experiments to learn how temperature impacts the boiling and melting points of water.

Planning Curriculum gives connections to other areas of study for easier curriculum creation.