National Standards Grades 5-8 Herschel Infrared Experiment

National Science Education Standards for Grades 5-8

CONTENT STANDARD A: Science as Inquiry

Abilities Necessary to do Scientific Inquiry

1. Identify questions that can be answered through scientific investigations
   
2. Design and conduct a scientific investigation
   
3. Use appropriate tools and techniques to gather, analyze, and interpret data
   
4. Develop descriptions, explanations, predictions, and models using evidence
   
5. Think critically and logically to make the relationships between evidence and explanations
   

Understandings about Scientific Inquiry

1. Mathematics is important in all aspects of scientific inquiry.
2. Technology used to gather data enhances accuracy and allows scientists to analyze and quantify results of investigations.
3. Scientific investigations sometimes result in new ideas and phenomena for study, generate new methods or procedures for an investigation, or develop new technologies to improve the collection of data. All of these results can lead to new investigations.

CONTENT STANDARD B: Physical Science

Transfer of Energy

1. Energy is a property of many substances and is associated with heat, light, electricity, mechanical motion, sound, nuclei, and the nature of a chemical. Energy is transferred in many ways.
   
2. Heat moves in predictable ways, flowing from warmer objects to cooler ones, until both reach the same temperature.
3. Light interacts with matter by transmission (including refraction), absorption, or scattering (including reflection). To see an object, light from that object--emitted by or scattered from it--must enter the eye.
   
4. The sun is a major source of energy for changes on the earth's surface. The sun loses energy by emitting light. A tiny fraction of that light reaches the earth, transferring energy from the sun to the earth. The sun's energy arrives as light with a range of wavelengths, consisting of visible light, infrared, and ultraviolet radiation.
   

CONTENT STANDARD G: History and Nature of Science

Nature of Science

1. Scientists formulate and test their explanations of nature using observation, experiments, and theoretical and mathematical models. Although all scientific ideas are tentative and subject to change and improvement in principle, for most major ideas in science, there is much experimental and observational confirmation.
2. It is part of scientific inquiry to evaluate the results of scientific investigations, experiments, observations, theoretical models, and the explanations proposed by other scientists. Evaluation includes reviewing the experimental procedures, examining the evidence, identifying faulty reasoning, pointing out statements that go beyond the evidence, and suggesting alternative explanations for the same observations.

History of Science

1. Many individuals have contributed to the traditions of science. Studying some of these individuals provides further understanding of scientific inquiry, science as a human endeavor, the nature of science, and the relationships between science and society.