SCIENCE AS INQUIRY

Students should develop

• Abilities necessary to do scientific inquiry
• Understandings about scientific inquiry

(Model-building is a constructing endeavor. Students gather data, formulate an hypothesis, build a model to demonstrate that they understand the underlying structure at work in the system, and test their hypothesis on the model, using the data to help guide the testing process.)

PHYSICAL SCIENCE

Students should develop an understanding of

• Chemical reactions

(Model-building is a constructing endeavor. Students gather data, formulate an hypothesis, build a model to demonstrate that they understand the underlying structure at work in the system, and test their hypothesis on the model, using the data to help guide the testing process.)

• Motions and forces

(There are so many useful SD models available that address motion and force concepts: simple harmonic oscillators, Lorenz system models, projectiles, bottle rockets, falling bodies, elliptical path of planets, flight dynamics, etc.)

• Conservation of energy and increase in disorder

(Newton’s Law of Cooling, turbine generators, engines, pole vaulter, chaotic attractors, etc.)

• Interactions of energy and matter

(Tidal waves, sound via sinusoidal wave simulation, etc.)

LIFE SCIENCE

Students should develop an understanding of

• The cell

(Cellular mitosis model)

• Interdependence of organisms

(Predator/prey or pest/host models, population and resource models, etc.)

• Matter, energy and organization in living systems

(Daisy World climate model, metabolism models, etc.)

• Behavior of organisms

(Serontonin model, GABA and drug receptor model, brain receptor model, drug models, body shivering model, etc.)

EARTH AND SPACE SCIENCE

Students should develop an understanding of

• Energy in the Earth system

(Numerous climate change models)

• Geochemical cycles

(Carbon cycle models)

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Students should develop

• Abilities of technological design
• Understandings about science and technology

(The modeling process addresses both of these standards.)

SCIENCE IN PERSONAL AND SOCIAL PERSPECTIVES

Students should develop an understanding of

• Personal and community health

(Epidemic models, metabolism models, pharmacokinetic models, adding model segments to the previous types of models to test potentially useful policies to address problematic issues, etc.)

• Population growth

(There are numerous population growth models that can simulate growth in subcategories of populations, population and resource consumption, population and environmental degradation, population and conflict, etc.)

• Natural resources

(Animal/environment interaction models, resource depletion/regeneration models, etc.)

• Environmental quality

(Climate change models, degradation of environment models, water table depletion models, fish depletion models, etc.)

• Natural and human-induced hazards

(Pollution models for air and water and soil models, waste disposal models, energy consumption models, etc.)

• Science and technology in local, national and global challenges

(All previously mentioned models can contain model diagram segments that test potential policies that are recommended to help mitigate local, national, and global challenges to determine if they have the possibility to be successful in the long term.)

HISTORY AND NATURE OF SCIENCE

Students should develop an understanding of

• Science as a human endeavor
• Nature of scientific knowledge

(The modeling process addresses both of these standards.)

¹ This list of standards is referenced from Education-World.com’s National Standards for Science.