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  • High School

    Matter and Its Interactions

Students who demonstrate understanding can:

Performance Expectations

  1. Refine the design of a chemical system by specifying a change in conditions that would produce increased amounts of products at equilibrium. HS-PS1-6

    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

  • 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-PS1-6)

Mathematics

  • HSN-Q.A.3 - Choose a level of accuracy appropriate to limitations on measurement when reporting quantities. (HS-PS1-6)

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.
  • All Things Being Equal

    This set of a teacher and student guides provides instruction on a 2-3 day series of activities about Le Chatelier’s principle, which shows the effect of changes to conditions in an equilibrium reaction. Students work in pairs or groups to develop th ...

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  •  Off Base - Acidity of oceans

    This lesson guides a student inquiry into properties of the ocean's carbonate buffer system, and how changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels may affect ocean pH and biological organisms that depend on calcification.

  •  Zero-Energy Housing

    Students investigate passive solar building design with a focus on heating. Insulation, window placement, thermal mass, surface colors, and site orientation are addressed in the background materials and design preparation. Students test their project...

  •  12 Steps to a Sustainable High School

    This activity includes an assessment, analysis, and action tool that can be used by classrooms to promote understanding of how the complex current issues of energy, pollution, supply, and consumption are not just global but also local issues.

  •  What Is Ocean Acidification?

    This static image from NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory Carbon Program offers a visually compelling and scientifically sound image of the sea water carbonate chemistry process that leads to ocean acidification and impedes calcification.

  •  How Hybrids Work

    This Flash animation describes how hybrid-electric vehicles (HEVs) combine the benefits of gasoline engines and electric motors and can be configured to obtain different objectives, such as improved fuel economy, increased power, or additional auxili...

  •  Green Revolution

    This is a series of 10 short videos, hosted by the National Science Foundation, each featuring scientists, research, and green technologies. The overall goal of this series is to encourage people to ask questions and look beyond fossil fuels for inno...

  •  Wind Maps

    This is a utility-scale, land-based map of the mean annual wind speed 80 meters above the ground. This map can be used to evaluate the potential for wind energy in the US. State maps and more information are linked from the main map.

  •  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.

  •  Floating Architecture: Preparing for a Life on Water

    This slideshow lays out a photo story with short descriptions of how designers of city buildings all over the world are taking climate change and rising sea level seriously.

  •  Understanding Ocean Acidification

    This series of five activities about ocean acidification incorporates real data from NOAA. The activities are organized as a pathway, with five levels increasing in sophistication, and different data-based inquiry activities.

  •  Nuclear: High power, hard to handle

    This video reviews key points as well as pros and cons of nuclear power.

  •  Sea Change Part 2: In the Lab

    This video is the second of a three-video series in the Sea Change project, which follows the work of Dr. Maureen Raymo, paleogeologist at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, who travels with fellow researchers to Australia in sea...

  •  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.

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    This interactive addresses the question if we can reduce CO2 emissions by 20% of 1990 levels and help avoid dangerous climate change? Users of this interactive can manipulate changes to various sources and uses (supply and demand) of energy with the ...

  •  Energy Issues: What you need to know

    These five short videos are an introduction to the pros and cons of energy issues, including cost, choices, efficiency, environmental impact, and scale. The videos are segments of a feature documentary entitled, Switch: Discover the Future of Energy.

  •  Renewable Energy Living Lab: Smart Solar

    In this activity, students work through the process of evaluating the feasibility of photovoltaic solar power in 4 different US cities.

  •  Reaction Exposed: The Big Chill!

    From TeachEngineering - In the presence of water, citric acid and sodium bicarbonate (aka baking soda) react to form sodium citrate, water, and carbon dioxide. Students investigate this endothermic reaction. They test a stoichiometric version of the ...

  •  Beyond the Egg Drop Act. 6B

    Newton's Third Law Paper Trampoline

  •  Beyond the Egg Drop Act. 6E

    Amusement Park Engineer-- Bumper Cars

  •  Beyond the Egg Drop Act. 6F

    Egg Lander--Motion Design CEPA

  •  How to conduct a high-altitude balloon (HAB) project - ...

    Powerpoints, videos, handouts on how to conduct a amazing STEM project: launching science experiments over 30km into the atmosphere (three times higher than commercial jets). These projects also incorporate a business component.

  •  3D Molecular Designs - The Science of Coronaviruses

    This free, four-part series includes videos, hands-on modeling activities and computer visualization tutorials that students can do in the classroom or at home.

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