• Back

  • High School

    Matter and Its Interactions

Students who demonstrate understanding can:

Performance Expectations

  1. Apply scientific principles and evidence to provide an explanation about the effects of changing the temperature or concentration of the reacting particles on the rate at which a reaction occurs. HS-PS1-5

    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

Constructing Explanations and Designing Solutions

Constructing explanations and designing solutions in 9–12 builds on K–8 experiences and progresses to explanations and designs that are supported by multiple and independent student-generated sources of evidence consistent with scientific ideas, principles, and theories.

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-PS1-5)
  • WHST.9-12.2 - Write informative/explanatory texts, including the narration of historical events, scientific procedures/ experiments, or technical processes. (HS-PS1-5)

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-PS1-5)
  • HSN-Q.A.3 - Choose a level of accuracy appropriate to limitations on measurement when reporting quantities. (HS-PS1-5)
  • MP.2 - Reason abstractly and quantitatively. (HS-PS1-5)

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.
  • Chemical Reaction Rates: Inquiry on Affecting Factors

    This lesson focuses on having students examine the effect of different factors on the rate of a chemical reaction, including: temperature, concentration of particles, surface area of reactants, and the presence of catalysts. Activities organized at l ...

  • Red Alert!

    This resource is a teacher guide to a lab where students investigate the effect of temperature and concentration on the rate of a reaction between red food dye and bleach. Using a spectrophotometer, students use absorbance to measure the rate of th ...

  • Chemical Reactions and Stoichiometry

    This series of interactive simulations provide students with the ability to experiment with reaction concentration and temperature to observe the effects on a chemical reaction. This simulation is coupled with questions that lead students to develop ...

  • Do you have a great resource to share with the community? Click here.
  •  Reaction Rates through Performance Assessment

    Studying Reaction Rates via Performance Assessment

  •  Biomass - Creating Bio-Diesel

    This detailed chemistry lesson from the U.S. Department of Energy focuses on transforming vegetable oil into biodiesel through a process of transesterification. The process described offers a good model for many chemical reaction processes that are u...

  •  Biofuels Video

    This video provides an overview of the research of the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) on converting biomass to liquid fuels.

  •  Capturing Carbon: Where do We Put it and Why?

    This as a 2-part activity in which students study the properties of CO2 in a lab and then use web resources to research different types of carbon capture. A video lecture accompanies the activity.

  •  Our Acidifying Ocean

    This 3-part interactive and virtual lab activity examines the life cycle of the sea urchin, and how the increasing acidity of the ocean affects their larval development.

  •  Life Cycle Assessment of Biofuels 101

    In this activity, students conduct a life cycle assessment of energy used and produced in ethanol production, and a life cycle assessment of carbon dioxide used and produced in ethanol production.

  •  Poker Chip Model: Global Carbon Pools and Fluxes

    This short activity provides a way to improve understanding of a frequently-published diagram of global carbon pools and fluxes. Students create a scaled 3-D visual of carbon reservoirs and the movement of carbon between reservoirs.

  •  Climate Change and the Oceans

    This activity covers the role that the oceans may play in climate change and how climate change may affect the oceans. It is lesson 8 in a nine-lesson module Visualizing and Understanding the Science of Climate Change.

  •  Acid Test:3 Minute Science of Ocean Acidification

    This short video is an excerpt from the longer video Acid Test: The Global Challenge of Ocean Acidification, produced by the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC). This short version summarizes the science of ocean acidification as well as the so...

  •  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.

  •  PHeT - Reaction & Rates

    Legacy PHeT sim

  •  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.

  •  Chemical Kinetics in the Kitchen

    A series of lessons that lead to a reaction rates planning lab that can be safely done in the home during online learning.

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