Science & Inquiry

D06 P3: Intellectual & Cognitive Awareness

Understanding the natural world through observation, questioning, and evidence — from living systems to the cosmos.

Science is less a body of facts than a way of asking questions. We teach it as inquiry: children learn to wonder, observe, test ideas, and weigh evidence. Big questions (including origins) are explored as stories grounded in evidence, never as dogma.

K–12 objective ladder

D06.S1 Scientific Inquiry

Asking questions, observing, predicting, testing ideas, and distinguishing evidence from belief.

47 lessons

K D06.S1.K.01 Ask "why" and "how" questions about things in the world and offer their own ideas.
1 D06.S1.01.01 Use the five senses to observe and describe objects, plants, animals, and weather.
1 D06.S1.01.02 Ask a question about something they notice and offer a guess they can check.
2 D06.S1.02.01 Make a prediction, test it by doing, and tell whether the result matched the prediction.
2 D06.S1.02.02 Sort and group objects or events by one or more features and explain how they grouped them.
3 D06.S1.03.01 Plan and carry out a simple fair test by changing one thing and keeping the rest the same.
3 D06.S1.03.02 Record observations using drawings, words, or simple tables, and describe what the data show.
4 D06.S1.04.01 Use simple tools (such as a ruler, scale, thermometer, or magnifier) to measure and record observations with units.
4 D06.S1.04.02 Compare results across repeated trials and explain why repeating a test matters.
5 D06.S1.05.01 Form a testable question, design an investigation, and identify what stays the same and what changes.
5 D06.S1.05.02 Explain the difference between evidence, inference, and opinion using a simple example.
6 D06.S1.06.01 Collect and organize data in tables and graphs, and use them to support or revise a claim.
6 D06.S1.06.02 Identify sources of error or bias in a simple investigation and suggest how to reduce them.
7 D06.S1.07.01 Distinguish correlation from causation and explain why a pattern alone does not prove a cause.
7 D06.S1.07.02 Evaluate whether a claim is supported by evidence and identify what further evidence would help.
8 D06.S1.08.01 Design a controlled experiment with a clear hypothesis, variables, and a plan for repeated trials and controls.
8 D06.S1.08.02 Explain how scientific models are revised when new evidence appears, using a historical example.
9 D06.S1.09.01 Construct an evidence-based explanation that links data to a claim and states its limits and uncertainties.
9 D06.S1.09.02 Critically evaluate a source of scientific information for reliability, bias, and conflicts of interest.
10 D06.S1.10.01 Analyze data using basic statistics (mean, range, and trend) and assess how well the data support a conclusion.
10 D06.S1.10.02 Explain how peer review, replication, and open sharing make scientific knowledge trustworthy, and where they fall short.
11 D06.S1.11.01 Design and defend an investigation that controls variables, includes controls and replicates, and reports uncertainty.
11 D06.S1.11.02 Compare how different ways of knowing (scientific, indigenous, and artistic) generate and test knowledge, and what each offers.
12 D06.S1.12.01 Evaluate competing scientific explanations of the same phenomenon using criteria of evidence, coherence, and falsifiability.
12 D06.S1.12.02 Reflect on the ethics of scientific practice — who asks the questions, who benefits, and how knowledge is used — and propose a more just practice.

D06.S2 Living Systems

Life in all its forms: organisms, ecosystems, and the interdependence of living things.

43 lessons

1 D06.S2.01.01 Observe and describe what living things need to stay alive (food, water, air, and shelter).
1 D06.S2.01.02 Sort things into living and nonliving, and tell what living things do (grow, move, and reproduce).
2 D06.S2.02.01 Describe the life cycle of a plant or animal (such as seed to plant or egg to adult) in order.
2 D06.S2.02.02 Observe and describe a habitat and the living things that call it home.
3 D06.S2.03.01 Explain how a food chain links producers, consumers, and decomposers and trace energy through it.
3 D06.S2.03.02 Describe how the parts of a plant (roots, stem, and leaves) help it survive and grow.
4 D06.S2.04.01 Describe how animals' body parts and behaviors help them survive in their environment.
4 D06.S2.04.02 Explain how living and nonliving things in an ecosystem depend on each other (such as soil, water, and sunlight).
5 D06.S2.05.01 Explain how matter and energy move through a food web and what can happen when one part changes.
5 D06.S2.05.02 Describe how traits pass from parents to offspring and how some traits vary within a family.
6 D06.S2.06.01 Explain how cells are the basic unit of life and that some living things are made of a single cell.
6 D06.S2.06.02 Describe how energy flows and matter (such as carbon and water) cycles through an ecosystem.
7 D06.S2.07.01 Explain how variation, inheritance, and natural selection shape populations over time using evidence.
7 D06.S2.07.02 Describe relationships among species (such as predation, competition, and symbiosis) and how they shape communities.
8 D06.S2.08.01 Explain how organisms inherit and express traits through genes (DNA) and how the environment interacts with genes.
8 D06.S2.08.02 Analyze how changes in one population ripple through an ecosystem and can reduce or restore balance.
9 D06.S2.09.01 Explain how matter cycles and energy flows through ecosystems, and how disruptions affect carrying capacity.
9 D06.S2.09.02 Describe biodiversity and explain why it matters for resilient ecosystems and human well-being.
10 D06.S2.10.01 Explain how genetic information passes from parents to offspring, how mutations arise, and how the environment shapes how genes are expressed.
10 D06.S2.10.02 Analyze how human activity (such as land use, pollution, and introduced species) affects ecosystems and evaluate responses.
11 D06.S2.11.01 Explain the evidence for evolution and common ancestry, and distinguish this from beliefs about life's meaning.
11 D06.S2.11.02 Analyze the ethics of human relationships with other species and ecosystems, including conservation and restoration.
12 D06.S2.12.01 Explain how ecosystems, economies, and human health are coupled, and weigh trade-offs in sustaining living systems.
12 D06.S2.12.02 Hold scientific accounts of life's origin and diversity alongside cultural and spiritual accounts, and articulate how they relate.

D06.S3 Physical Systems

Matter, energy, forces, and how the physical world behaves.

43 lessons

1 D06.S3.01.01 Observe and describe the properties of materials (such as hard, soft, shiny, heavy, and light).
1 D06.S3.01.02 Describe how objects move (push, pull, roll, and slide) and what makes them start or stop.
2 D06.S3.02.01 Sort materials by their properties and explain how properties make them useful for different jobs.
2 D06.S3.02.02 Describe how sound, light, and heat are forms of energy we can observe.
3 D06.S3.03.01 Describe the three states of matter (solid, liquid, and gas) and how heating and cooling change them.
3 D06.S3.03.02 Explain that a push or pull (force) changes an object's motion, and describe friction.
4 D06.S3.04.01 Describe how energy moves from one place or object to another (such as heat, sound, and light) and is never destroyed.
4 D06.S3.04.02 Build a simple circuit and explain what conductors and insulators do.
5 D06.S3.05.01 Explain that matter is made of particles too small to see and use this idea to explain changes of state.
5 D06.S3.05.02 Describe gravity and magnetism as forces that act at a distance.
6 D06.S3.06.01 Describe the forms of energy (kinetic, potential, thermal, chemical, and electrical) and how energy changes between them.
6 D06.S3.06.02 Explain how balanced and unbalanced forces determine whether an object's motion changes.
7 D06.S3.07.01 Explain force, mass, and acceleration and use them to describe everyday motion.
7 D06.S3.07.02 Describe how waves (such as sound, light, and water) carry energy and relate wave properties to what we observe.
8 D06.S3.08.01 Explain atoms, elements, and compounds, and how chemical reactions rearrange atoms to form new substances.
8 D06.S3.08.02 Explain electric and magnetic fields and how they interact to produce forces and currents.
9 D06.S3.09.01 Explain the law of conservation of energy and analyze energy transformations and efficiency in a real system.
9 D06.S3.09.02 Use the structure of the atom to explain bonding and how chemical reactions absorb or release energy.
10 D06.S3.10.01 Explain motion, force, and energy quantitatively in everyday and engineered systems (such as work, power, and momentum).
10 D06.S3.10.02 Explain how energy generation (renewable and nonrenewable) works and evaluate its environmental and social trade-offs.
11 D06.S3.11.01 Explain how matter and energy behave at atomic and quantum scales and why this challenges everyday intuition.
11 D06.S3.11.02 Apply thermodynamics to real systems and evaluate the energy and material costs of technology.
12 D06.S3.12.01 Explain the fundamental forces and particles that make up matter, and how they unify physical explanations.
12 D06.S3.12.02 Weigh the promise and risk of physical technologies (energy, materials, and computing) for a just and sustainable future.

D06.S4 Earth, Space & Origins

The Earth, the cosmos, and the big stories of beginnings — held as stories grounded in evidence, among many others.

44 lessons

K D06.S4.K.01 Listen to an origin story about the universe and retell it in their own words, knowing it is one story among many.
K D06.S4.K.02 Observe and describe changes in the natural world (day and night, seasons, growth).
1 D06.S4.01.01 Observe and describe patterns of the Sun, Moon, and stars, and how day turns into night.
1 D06.S4.01.02 Observe and describe weather and seasons where they live and in other places.
2 D06.S4.02.01 Describe how the Sun warms the Earth and gives light that living things need.
2 D06.S4.02.02 Describe rocks, soil, and water and how they make up the land we live on.
3 D06.S4.03.01 Explain how Earth's rotation causes day and night and how its orbit causes the seasons.
3 D06.S4.03.02 Describe how wind, water, and ice shape the land over time.
4 D06.S4.04.01 Describe the water cycle and how water moves and is reused around the Earth.
4 D06.S4.04.02 Explain how fossils and rock layers give clues about Earth's long history.
5 D06.S4.05.01 Describe the Earth, Moon, and Sun system and explain day length, moon phases, and eclipses.
5 D06.S4.05.02 Explain how Earth's surface is changed by slow and fast processes, and where earthquakes and volcanoes occur.
6 D06.S4.06.01 Describe Earth's place in the solar system and the scale of planets, moons, and the Sun.
6 D06.S4.06.02 Explain how the rock cycle recycles Earth's materials and how soil supports life.
7 D06.S4.07.01 Explain how the atmosphere, oceans, and land interact to shape climate and weather.
7 D06.S4.07.02 Explain how evidence (such as fossils, rock layers, and ice cores) tells the story of deep time and past life.
8 D06.S4.08.01 Describe the life cycle of stars, the formation of elements, and our place in the galaxy.
8 D06.S4.08.02 Explain how plate tectonics shapes continents, mountains, and ocean basins over millions of years.
9 D06.S4.09.01 Explain how greenhouse gases regulate climate and how human activity is changing the climate system.
9 D06.S4.09.02 Explain the evidence for the age of the Earth and the universe and how scientists measure it.
10 D06.S4.10.01 Explain the Big Bang model and the evidence that supports it, and distinguish a model from revealed truth.
10 D06.S4.10.02 Analyze human impacts on Earth systems and evaluate responses to environmental change with hope and agency.
11 D06.S4.11.01 Compare cosmological models and weigh the evidence for each, holding them as models rather than certainties.
11 D06.S4.11.02 Explain how Earth's systems are coupled and how climate, ecology, and human society shape one another.
12 D06.S4.12.01 Weigh cosmological models and geological evidence, and the relationship between scientific and other ways of knowing about origins.
12 D06.S4.12.02 Articulate a considered position on the origins of the cosmos and life that holds scientific evidence and other ways of knowing in respectful relation.

Science & Inquiry

This is an exemplar domain (alongside D01). It shows how a domain declares its strands and grade-level objectives, and — crucially — how we hold the big questions of origins as stories grounded in evidence, not as dogma (see docs/philosophy.md §11).

Strands

D06.S1 — Scientific Inquiry: asking, observing, predicting, testing, weighing evidence.
D06.S2 — Living Systems: life, ecosystems, interdependence.
D06.S3 — Physical Systems: matter, energy, forces.
D06.S4 — Earth, Space & Origins: Earth, cosmos, and the stories of beginnings.

Progression (spiral)

Each strand spirals from Kindergarten to Grade 12. Scientific Inquiry grows from asking “why” and guessing (K–2), through fair tests, measurement, and telling evidence from opinion (3–5), to controlled experiments, correlation versus causation, and evaluating sources (6–9), and finally to designing rigorous investigations, comparing ways of knowing, and reflecting on the ethics of science (10–12). Living Systems begins in Grade 1 with what living things need, and rises through life cycles, food chains, and adaptations (1–5), to cells, ecosystems, heredity, and evolution (6–9), to biodiversity, coupled human–ecosystem systems, and holding scientific and cultural accounts of life side by side (10–12). Physical Systems begins in Grade 1 with materials and motion, and rises through states of matter, forces, energy, and simple circuits (1–5), to forms of energy, waves, atoms, and chemical reactions (6–9), to conservation, thermodynamics, quantum and particle physics, and weighing technology’s promise and risk (10–12). Earth, Space & Origins begins in Kindergarten with origin stories and observing day, night, and seasons, then rises through weather, the Earth–Moon–Sun system, rock and water cycles, deep time, stars, plate tectonics, and climate (1–9), and ends in Grade 12 by weighing cosmological models and geological evidence alongside other ways of knowing — always with open inquiry, holding origins as stories grounded in evidence, never as dogma.