EDSC 310-56
Module 5: Step 3: Curriculum Standards Assignment
Victoria Campbell
9/20/2021
Standards Evaluated: California Next Generation Science Standards
Subject Area: Physical Science
Grade Level: High School
The standards for high school physical science are organized in to 4 key content clusters. The
first cluster is “Matter and Its Interactions.” This cluster focuses on the elements of the periodic
table and how they interact with each other and would primarily be covered in a introductory
high school chemistry class. First the students need to learn how the elements are organized in
the periodic table and how to use the structure of the table to predict how they react with each
other. For example students should be able to predict that Sodium and Chloride react to form a
salt with ionic bonds because Sodium in located on the left side of the table and is a metal, while
Chloride is a non-metal located on the right side. They should also be able to predict that
Potassium and Sodium react in similar ways because they are in the same column and have
similar electron configurations. The students should be able to design an experiment that tests
this prediction by reacting Potassium and Sodium with the same elements and measuring the
outcome. Students should understand how the bulk properties of matter are influenced by these
periodic trends, for example, they would be able to explain why Gold and Silver are malleable,
why Oxygen exists as a diatomic gas, and so on. Students should be able to design an experiment,
predict and test how changing the quantities of reactants or conditions changes the products in a
reaction.
The second cluster is “Motion and Stability: Forces and Interactions.” This cluster focuses on
Newton’s laws of motion and gravity and Coulomb’s law and would primarily be covered in an
introductory physics class. Students should understand Newton’s laws of motion and gravity as
they apply to macroscopic objects and be able to design experiments to test these laws. For
example students should be able to predict the amount of time it will take for metal balls to fall
from various heights and be able to test that in the laboratory. Students should understand
conservation of momentum as it applies to macroscopic objects and predict the results of
collisions between objects. Students should understand the way in which gravitational and
electric fields allow distant objects to exert forces on each other. They should be able to relate
this to examples such as the weight of an object on earth vs another planet or the orbit of a planet
around the sun. Students should be able to describe how a magnet exerts force and why some
materials are magnetic and some are not. Students should be able to design experiments to
investigate the relationship between magnetic fields and electric fields, such as a simple
generator to create electric current from a rotating magnet.
The third cluster is “Energy”. This is a broad topic which would span the fields of chemistry and
physics. Students should understand energy at the macroscopic level and be able to describe the
EDSC 310-56
Module 5: Step 3: Curriculum Standards Assignment
Victoria Campbell
9/20/2021
difference between potential energy and kinetic energy and how energy is conserved, stored and
transferred between one type of energy and another via motion, sound, light and thermal energy.
They should understand conservation of energy, that is that energy is not created or destroyed,
merely converted or transported. They should understand and be able to use the mathematical
equations that express the types of conversions and transportation. They should be able to
connect this understanding to real world problems of energy production, conservation and
storage. At the microscopic level they should understand how chemical and nuclear reactions
convert potential energy to thermal energy and how to measure this in the laboratory. They
should understand the limitation of measurement techniques and the reliability and precision of
the data collected. They should understand how reactions within atoms and molecules can
produce or absorb radiation which allows energy to be transported across a distance.
The final cluster is “Waves and Their Applications in Technologies for Information Transfer.”
This would also be a cross class standard covered in physics and chemistry. Students should
understand how to describe waves using mathematical expressions. They should understand the
relationships between speed, frequency, amplitude and wavelength. They should understand the
historical experiments establishing the wave/particle duality of electro-magnetic radiation and
how this duality relates to the previous topic of radiation transmitting energy over great distances.
In addition to electromagnetic radiation students should be able to describe the wave functions of
seismic waves, sound waves, and ocean waves. Students should then be able to apply this
knowledge to discussion of how humans have harnessed electromagnetic waves to transmit
information across great distances, how we use information transmitted to us from great
distances, such as distant star systems to further our understanding of the universe, or how we
use radiation such as x-rays for medical imaging purposes.