Phenomena, standards, and progressions

Grade 7

The Amplify Science units can be arranged at the discretion of the individual school, but suggested sequences are available. The grade 7 program in the suggested sequence below progressively builds students’ abilities to meet all the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) grade-level performance expectations through a three-dimensional instructional sequence. The following is an overview of the sample sequence of units, a description of the progression of student learning across the year, and a summary of how the sequence meets all NGSS performance expectations for grade 7.

Scroll down to see the phenomenon, student role, and performance expectations by unit, or click to jump to the Progression and Organization, Disciplinary Core Ideas, Crosscutting Concepts Core Ideas, or Science and Engineering Practices.

Sequence of units

  • Geology on Mars
  • Plate Motion
  • Plate Motion Engineering Internship
  • Rock Transformations
  • Phase Change
  • Phase Change Engineering Internship
  • Chemical Reactions
  • Populations and Resources
  • Matter and Energy in Ecosystems

 

Geology on Mars

Analyzing data about landforms on Mars can provide evidence that Mars may have once been habitable.
As planetary geologists, students analyze data about geoscience processes on the surface of Mars, in order to decide whether Mars could have been habitable.
  • ESS1-3: Scale in the Solar System
  • ESS2-2: Geoscience Processes
  • ESS1-3: Scale in the Solar System

Plate Motion

Mesosaurus fossils have been found on continents separated by thousands of kilometers of ocean, even though the Mesosaurus species once lived all together.
Students play the role of geologists working for the fictional Museum of West Namibia to investigate Mesosaurus fossils found both in southern Africa and in South America.
  • ESS1-4: Strata and Earth Age
  • ESS2-2: Geoscience Processes
  • ESS2-3: Evidence for Plate Motion

Plate Motion Engineering Internship

Patterns in earthquake data can be used to design an effective tsunami warning system.
Students act as geohazard engineering interns to design a tsunami warning system. Students communicate like engineers and scientists do as they use their understanding of plate motion and patterns in data to create and justify their designs.
  • ESS3-2: Natural Hazards
  • ETS1-1: Criteria and Constraints
  • ETS1-2: Evaluating Solutions
  • ETS1-3: Analyzing Results
  • ETS1-4: Modeling and Iterative Testing
  • ESS2-2: Geoscience Processes
  • ESS2-3: Evidence for Plate Motion

Rock Transformations

Rock samples from the Great Plains and from the Rocky Mountains — regions hundreds of miles apart — look very different, but have surprisingly similar mineral compositions.
As geologists, students investigate different ways rocks form and change. Using their new understanding, they explain how rock transformation processes caused rock material from the Rocky Mountains to eventually become part of the Great Plains.
  • ESS2-1: Earth's Materials
  • ESS2-2: Geoscience Processes
  • ESS3-1: Distribution of Natural Resources
  • ESS1-3: Scale in the Solar System
  • ESS2-3: Evidence for Plate Motion

Phase Change

A methane lake on Titan no longer appears in images taken by a space probe two years apart.
Students, in their role as student chemists, investigate the mystery of disappearing methane lakes on Saturn's moon, Titan. They must apply what they learn about phase change, matter, and energy.
  • PS1-4: Phase Change
  • PS1-1: Atomic Theory / Molecules
  • PS3-4: Energy and Temperature
  • PS3-5: Motion and Energy Transfer
  • ESS1-3: Scale in the Solar System
  • ESS2-4: The Water Cycle

Phase Change Engineering Internship

Designing portable baby incubators with different combinations of phase change materials can keep babies at a healthy temperature.
As chemical engineering interns, students design and test plans for an incubator for premature and low birth weight babies, applying ideas about phase change and the engineering and design process.
  • ETS1-1: Criteria and Constraints
  • ETS1-2: Evaluating Solutions
  • ETS1-3: Analyzing Results
  • ETS1-4: Modeling and Iterative Testing
  • PS1-4: Phase Change
  • PS3-3: Thermal Energy Transfer
  • PS3-4: Energy and Temperature

Chemical Reactions

A mysterious reddish-brown substance has been detected in the tap water of Westfield.
Students play the role of student chemists, applying what they learn about matter and chemical reactions to solve the mystery of mysterious substances appearing in a county’s water supply.
  • PS1-1: Atomic Theory/Molecules
  • PS1-2: Chemical Reactions
  • PS1-3: Synthetic Materials
  • PS1-5: Atoms Conserved
  • PS1-6: Thermal Energy and Chemical Processes
  • LS1-6: Photosynthesis
  • LS1-7: Cellular Respiration
  • ESS3-1: Distribution of Natural Resources
  • ESS3-3: Designs to Minimize Impact

Matter and Energy in Ecosystems

The biodome ecosystem has collapsed.
Students act as ecologists to investigate a failed biodome. In the process, they learn about how matter, carbon in particular, flows through biotic and abiotic components of an ecosystem.
  • LS1-1: Living Things Made of Cells
  • LS1-2: Cell Parts
  • LS1-6: Photosynthesis
  • LS1-7: Cellular Respiration
  • LS2-2: Ecosystem Relationships
  • LS2-3: Flow of Energy and Cycling of Matter
  • LS2-4: Changes Affect Populations
  • ESS2-1: Earth's Materials
  • PS1-1: Atomic Theory / Molecules
  • PS1-6: Thermal Energy and Chemical Processes
  • LS1-1: Living Things Made of Cells
  • LS1-2: Cell Parts
  • ESS3-5: Factors for Global Temperature

Populations and Resources

The size of the moon jelly population in Glacier Sea has increased.
In their role as student ecologists, students work to uncover the cause of the moon jelly population explosion in Glacier Sea. They learn about how organisms interact in an ecosystem to get the resources they need.
  • LS2-1: Resources and Populations
  • LS2-2: Ecosystem Relationships
  • LS2-3: Flow of Energy and Cycling of Matter
  • LS2-4: Changes Affect Populations
  • LS2-5: Ecosystem Services
  • LS1-7: Cellular Respiration
  • ESS3-3: Designs to Minimize Impact

Progression and Organization

The units in grade 7 are designed and sequenced to build students’ expertise with the grade-level disciplinary core ideas (DCIs), science and engineering practices (SEPs) and crosscutting concepts (CCCs). The year begins with a launch unit, Geology on Mars, in which students are introduced to essential practices, routines, and approaches that will serve as touchstones for learning in all units that follow. An important example of this is the SEP of Engaging in Argument from Evidence. Students are introduced to the practice of scientific argumentation in the launch unit, then build on this understanding through the year, with each unit focusing more in-depth on one aspect of the practice. The Geology on Mars unit also has an emphasis on the CCC of Systems and System Models which students will draw upon in nearly every unit throughout the year as they make sense of and model designed systems, geologic systems, and ecosystems.

Concepts and practices are connected across grade 7. For example, students are introduced to the idea of tectonic motion in the Plate Motion unit, then extend this understanding to make sense of natural hazards in the Plate Motion Engineering Internship unit, and to understand changes to rock formations due to subduction and uplift in the Rock Transformations unit. In the Populations and Resources unit, students build upon an understanding of cellular respiration introduced in grade 6 to figure out ideas about energy resources in food webs, and how these resources affect population sizes. The Matter and Energy in Ecosystems unit builds on this understanding, and on concepts about chemical reactions introduced in the Chemical Reactions unit, as students make discoveries about the flow of energy and the cycling of matter in ecosystems. The Plate Motion Engineering Internship unit follows the Plate Motion unit and requires students to apply what they learned in the Plate Motion unit to design a solution to an engineering problem. The same is true of the Phase Change Engineering Internship unit and the Phase Change unit.

Each unit has a particular emphasis on certain DCIs, CCC’s, and SEP’s, with combinations that are appropriate for the anchor phenomena of each unit. For example, in the Populations and Resources unit, investigating a dramatic increase in a moon jelly population leads students to discoveries about Interdependent Relationships in Ecosystems (DCI LS2.A), the Cycle of Matter and Energy Transfer in Ecosystems (DCI LS2.B) and Ecosystem Dynamics, Functioning, and Resilience (DCI LS2.C). The unit has a particular emphasis on the CCC of Stability and Change because students must make sense of changes to the dynamic equilibrium of populations and changes to that equilibrium. This unit also includes a focus on the SEP of Developing and Using Models because of the centrality of models — including food webs—to this area of science.

Unit abbreviations: Geology on Mars (GOM), Plate Motion (PM), Plate Motion Engineering Internship (PM EI), Rock Transformations (RT), Phase Change (PC), Phase Change Engineering Internship (PC EI), Chemical Reactions (CRX), Populations and Resources (PR), Matter and Energy in Ecosystems (MEE).

Disciplinary core ideas

GOM PM PM EI RT PC PC EI CRX PR MEE
ESS1.C: The History of Planet Earth (MS-ESS2-3)
ESS2.A: Earth’s Materials and Systems (MS-ESS2-2)
ESS2.B: Plate Tectonics and Large-Scale System Interactions (MS-ESS2-3)
ESS2.C: The Roles of Water in Earth’s Surface Processes (MS-ESS2-2)
ESS3.A: Natural Resources (MS-ESS3-1)
ESS3.B: Natural Hazards (MS-ESS3-2)
PS1.A: Structure and Properties of Matter (MS-PS1-1, MS-PS1-4)
PS1.B: Chemical Reactions (MS-PS1-2, MS-PS1-3, MS-PS1-5, MS-PS1-6)
PS3.A: Definitions of Energy (MS-PS1-4)
PS3.D: Energy in Chemical Processes and Everyday Life (MS-LS1-7)
LS1.C: Organization for Matter and Energy Flow in Organisms (MS-LS1- 6, MS-LS1-7)
LS2.A: Interdependent Relationships in Ecosystems (MS-LS2-1, MS-LS2-1)
LS2.B: Cycle of Matter and Energy Transfer in Ecosystems (MS-LS2-3)
LS2.C: Ecosystem Dynamics, Functioning, and Resilience (MS-LS2-4, MS-LS2-5)
LS4.D: Biodiversity and Humans (MS-LS2-5)
ETS1.A: Defining and Delimiting Engineering Problems (MS-ETS1-1)
ETS1.B: Developing Possible Solutions (MS-ETS1-2, MS-ETS1-3, MS-ETS1-4)
ETS1.C: Optimizing the Design Solution (MS-ETS1-3, MS-ETS1-4)

Crosscutting concepts

Focal   Other Emphasized   Additional

GOM PM PM EI RT PC PC EI CRX PR MEE
Patterns
Cause and Effect
Scale, Proportion, and Quantity
Systems and System Models
Energy and Matter
Stability and Change
Structure and Function

Science and Engineering Practices

Focal   Other Emphasized   Additional

GOM PM PM EI RT PC PC EI CRX PR MEE
Asking Questions and Defining Problems
Developing and Using Models
Planning and Carrying Out Investigations
Analyzing and Interpreting Data
Using and Mathematics and Computational Thinking
Constructing Explanations and Designing Solutions
Engaging in Argument from Evidence
Obtaining, Evaluating and Communicating Information