New Hampshire State Standards for Science: Grade 12

NH.SPS1. Science Process Skills: Scientific Inquiry and Critical Thinking Skills

S:SPS1:12:1.1. Making Observations and Asking Questions: Students will apply skills from previous grades and define and delimit problems to facilitate investigation.

S:SPS1:12:1.2. Making Observations and Asking Questions: Students will apply skills from previous grades and make and record measurements to the correct number of significant figures based on the precision of the instrument used.

S:SPS1:12:1.3. Making Observations and Asking Questions: Students will apply skills from previous grades and make measurements and observations about a variety of events and phenomena, including those that occur during very small and very large time frames.

S:SPS1:12:1.4. Making Observations and Asking Questions: Students will apply skills from previous grades and ask questions about relationships between and among observable variables as well as theoretical entities.

S:SPS1:12:1.5. Making Observations and Asking Questions: Students will apply skills from previous grades and use, evaluate and apply complex classification schemes based on an understanding of scientific concepts, laws and principles.

S:SPS1:12:1.6. Making Observations and Asking Questions: Students will apply skills from previous grades and describe and apply classification systems and nomenclatures used in the sciences.

S:SPS1:12:2.1. Designing Scientific Investigations: Students will apply skills from previous grades and identify the theoretical basis of an investigation and develop a prediction and a hypothesis that are consistent with the theoretical basis.

S:SPS1:12:2.2. Designing Scientific Investigations: Students will apply skills from previous grades and evaluate and select appropriate instruments for collecting data and evidence in an investigation.

S:SPS1:12:2.3. Designing Scientific Investigations: Students will apply skills from previous grades and develop appropriate sampling procedures for a given investigation.

S:SPS1:12:3.1. Conducting Scientific Investigations: Students will apply skills from previous grades and carry out procedures controlling major variables and adapting or extending procedures where required.

S:SPS1:12:3.2. Conducting Scientific Investigations: Students will apply skills from previous grades and implement appropriate sampling procedures.

S:SPS1:12:3.3. Conducting Scientific Investigations: Students will apply skills from previous grades and identify and explain sources of error and uncertainty in measurement and express results in a form that acknowledges the degree of uncertainty.

S:SPS1:12:4.1. Representing and Understanding Results of Investigations: Students will apply skills from previous grades and interpret patterns and trends in data, and infer or calculate linear and non-linear relationships among variables.

S:SPS1:12:4.2. Representing and Understanding Results of Investigations: Students will apply skills from previous grades and compare theoretical and empirical values and account for discrepancies.

S:SPS1:12:4.3. Representing and Understanding Results of Investigations: Students will apply skills from previous grades and evaluate the relevance, reliability and adequacy of data and data collection methods.

S:SPS1:12:5.1. Evaluating Scientific Explanations: Students will apply skills from previous grades and explain how two different scientific explanations for the same phenomenon can be evaluated using the predictive value of the explanations.

S:SPS1:12:5.2. Evaluating Scientific Explanations: Students will apply skills from previous grades and apply and assess alternative theoretical models.

NH.SPS2. Science Process Skills: Unifying Concepts of Science

S:SPS2:12:1.1. Nature of Science: Students will apply skills from previous grades and recognize that there are different traditions in science about what is investigated and how; but they all have in common certain beliefs about the value of evidence, logic and good arguments.

S:SPS2:12:1.2. Nature of Science: Students will apply skills from previous grades and understand that no matter how well one theory fits observations, a new theory might fit them better, or might fit a wider range of observations.

S:SPS2:12:1.3. Nature of Science: Students will apply skills from previous grades and explain how in the short run, new ideas that do not mesh well with mainstream ideas in science often encounter vigorous criticism.

S:SPS2:12:1.4. Nature of Science: Students will apply skills from previous grades and know that from time to time, major shifts occur in the scientific view of how the world works; more often, however, the changes that take place in the body of scientific knowledge are small modifications of prior knowledge (change and continuity are persistent features of science).

S:SPS2:12:1.5. Nature of Science: Students will apply skills from previous grades and recognize that evidence for the value of testing, revising and discarding theories is given by the improving ability of scientists to offer reliable explanations and make accurate predictions.

S:SPS2:12:2.1. Systems and Energy: Students will apply skills from previous grades and use evidence and logic to explain that as the number of parts in a system grows in size, the number of possible interactions increases much more rapidly, roughly with the square of the number of parts.

S:SPS2:12:2.2. Systems and Energy: Students will apply skills from previous grades and know that understanding how things work and designing solutions to problems of almost any kind can be facilitated by systems analysis; in defining a system, it is important to specify its boundaries and subsystems, indicate its relation to other systems, and identify what its input and output are expected to be.

S:SPS2:12:3.1. Models and Scale: Students will apply skills from previous grades and recognize that computers have greatly improved the power and use of mathematical models by performing computations that are very long, very complicated, or repetitive; therefore, computers can show the consequences of applying complex rules or of changing the rules. The graphic capabilities of computers make them useful in the design and testing of devices and structures and in the simulation of complicated processes.

S:SPS2:12:4.1. Patterns of Change: Students will apply skills from previous grades and give examples of how in many physical, biological and social systems, changes in one direction tend to produce opposing (but somewhat delayed) influences, leading to repetitive cycles of behavior.

S:SPS2:12:4.2. Patterns of Change: Students will apply skills from previous grades and realize that most systems above the molecular level involve so many parts and forces and are so sensitive to tiny differences in conditions that their precise behavior is unpredictable, even if all the rules for change are known. Predictable or not, the precise future of a system is not completely determined by its present state and circumstances but also on the fundamentally uncertain outcomes of events on the atomic scale.

S:SPS2:12:5.1. Form and Function: Students will apply skills from previous grades and explore how the movement of ocean floor plates under continental plates or two continental plates moving against each other can deform the earth's surface.

S:SPS2:12:5.2. Form and Function: Students will apply skills from previous grades and provide data and evidence on how folding in crustal plates can cause mountain ranges.

S:SPS2:12:5.3. Form and Function: Students will apply skills from previous grades and understand that an atom's electron configuration determines how the atom can interact with other atoms.

S:SPS2:12:5.4. Form and Function: Students will apply skills from previous grades and provide examples of how configuration of atoms in a molecule determines a molecule's properties.

S:SPS2:12:5.5. Form and Function: Students will apply skills from previous grades and discover how the shape of large molecules affects the interaction with other molecules.

S:SPS2:12:5.6. Form and Function: Students will apply skills from previous grades and demonstrate that a variety of biological, chemical and physical phenomena can be explained by changes in the arrangement and motion of atoms and molecules.

NH.SPS3. Science Process Skills: Personal, Social, and Technological Perspectives

S:SPS3:12:1.1. Collaboration in Scientific Endeavors: Students will apply skills from previous grades and collaborate with existing research efforts.

S:SPS3:12:1.2. Collaboration in Scientific Endeavors: Students will apply skills from previous grades and identify global researchers in a field of interest.

S:SPS3:12:2.1. Common Environmental Issues, Natural Resources Management and Conservation: Students will apply skills from previous grades and develop, modify, clarify and explain questions that guide environmental investigations of various types.

S:SPS3:12:2.2. Common Environmental Issues, Natural Resources Management and Conservation: Students will apply skills from previous grades and design investigations to answer particular questions about the environment.

S:SPS3:12:2.3. Common Environmental Issues, Natural Resources Management and Conservation: Students will apply skills from previous grades and locate and collect reliable information for environmental investigations of many types.

S:SPS3:12:2.4. Common Environmental Issues, Natural Resources Management and Conservation: Students will apply skills from previous grades and apply basic logic and reasoning skills to evaluate completeness and reliability in a variety of information sources.

S:SPS3:12:2.5. Common Environmental Issues, Natural Resources Management and Conservation: Students will apply skills from previous grades and organize and display information in ways appropriate to different types of environmental investigations and purposes.

S:SPS3:12:2.6. Common Environmental Issues, Natural Resources Management and Conservation: Students will apply skills from previous grades and create, use and evaluate models to understand environmental phenomena.

S:SPS3:12:2.7. Common Environmental Issues, Natural Resources Management and Conservation: Students will apply skills from previous grades and use to evidence and logic in developing proposed explanations that address their initial questions and hypotheses.

S:SPS3:12:2.8. Common Environmental Issues, Natural Resources Management and Conservation: Students will apply skills from previous grades and analyze global, social, cultural, political, economic and environmental linkages.

S:SPS3:12:2.9. Common Environmental Issues, Natural Resources Management and Conservation: Students will apply skills from previous grades and evaluate presentations of environmental issues for accuracy.

S:SPS3:12:3.1. Science and Technology, Technological Design and Application: Students will apply skills from previous grades and analyze environmental issues such as water quality, air quality, hazardous waste, and depletion of natural resources.

S:SPS3:12:3.2. Science and Technology, Technological Design and Application: Students will apply skills from previous grades and evaluate status of a local community system (transportation, water, communication, food resources or electrical) in partnership with local officials.

S:SPS3:12:3.3. Science and Technology, Technological Design and Application: Students will apply skills from previous grades and analyze technical writing, graphs, charts, and diagrams.

NH.SPS4. Science Process Skills: Science Skills for Information, Communication and Media Literacy

S:SPS4:12:1.1. Information and Media Literacy: Students will apply skills from previous grades and select and analyze information from various sources (including electronic resources, print resources, community resources) and personally collected data to answer questions being investigated.

S:SPS4:12:1.2. Information and Media Literacy: Students will apply skills from previous grades and collect and use qualitative and quantitative data and information, seek evidence and sources of information to identify flaws such as errors and bias, and explain how the evidence supports or refutes an initial hypothesis.

S:SPS4:12:1.3. Information and Media Literacy: Students will apply skills from previous grades and analyze data and information gathered to clarify problems or issues identifying costs and benefits from a social, cultural, and/or environmental perspective; predict the consequences of action or inaction; and propose possible solutions.

S:SPS4:12:2.1. Communication Skills: Students will apply skills from previous grades and Select and use appropriate scientific vocabulary to orally share and communicate scientific ideas, plans, results, and conclusions resulting from investigations.

S:SPS4:12:2.2. Communication Skills: Students will apply skills from previous grades and create written reports and journals to share and communicate scientific ideas, plans, results, and conclusions resulting from observations and investigations.

S:SPS4:12:2.3. Communication Skills: Students will apply skills from previous grades and create a multimedia presentation incorporating numeric symbolic and/or graphic modes of representation to share scientific ideas, plans, results, and conclusions.

S:SPS4:12:3.1. Critical Thinking and Systems Thinking: Students will apply skills from previous grades and pursue scientific inquiry such as observation, measurement, hypothesis formation and analysis, and value 'habits of mind' such as persistence, accuracy, and collaboration.

S:SPS4:12:3.2. Critical Thinking and Systems Thinking: Students will apply skills from previous grades and generate solutions to scientific questions and challenges through developing, modeling and revising investigations.

S:SPS4:12:3.3. Critical Thinking and Systems Thinking: Students will apply skills from previous grades and apply scientific knowledge and skills to make reasoned decisions about the use of science and scientific innovations.

S:SPS4:12:4.1. Problem Identification, Formulation, and Solution: Students will apply skills from previous grades and formulate scientific questions about an issue and define experimental procedures for finding answers.

S:SPS4:12:4.2. Problem Identification, Formulation, and Solution: Students will apply skills from previous grades and plan and conduct practical tests to solve problems or answer a question, collect and analyze data using appropriate instruments and techniques safely and accurately.

S:SPS4:12:4.3. Problem Identification, Formulation, and Solution: Students will apply skills from previous grades and develop models and explanations to fit evidence obtained through investigations.

S:SPS4:12:5.1. Creativity and Intellectual Curiosity: Students will apply skills from previous grades and prepare multimedia presentations to share results of investigations, demonstrating a clear sense of audience and purpose.

S:SPS4:12:5.2. Creativity and Intellectual Curiosity: Students will apply skills from previous grades and use electronic networks to share information.

S:SPS4:12:5.3. Creativity and Intellectual Curiosity: Students will apply skills from previous grades and model solutions to a range of problems in science and technology using computer simulation software.

S:SPS4:12:6.1. Interpersonal and Collaborative Skills: Students will apply skills from previous grades and create a culminating team project that demonstrates content knowledge and conceptual understanding and shows connections between science content and real-world settings.

S:SPS4:12:6.2. Interpersonal and Collaborative Skills: Students will apply skills from previous grades and collect, synthesize, and report information from a variety of points of view.

S:SPS4:12:7.1. Self Direction: Students will apply skills from previous grades and use key ideas of science to document and explain through an investigation the relationship between science and concepts.

S:SPS4:12:7.2. Self Direction: Students will apply skills from previous grades and self-assess progress toward a predetermined outcome and decide what needs to be done to meet the goal.

S:SPS4:12:8.1. Accountability and Adaptability: Students will apply skills from previous grades and identify the reputable and appropriate communities of learners to whom research findings should be reported, compare data, and adapt as needed.

S:SPS4:12:8.2. Accountability and Adaptability: Students will apply skills from previous grades and use science learned to create a personal action plan on a community issue.

S:SPS4:12:9.1. Social Responsibility: Students will apply skills from previous grades and collaborate with interested learners using appropriate web resources and publication media such as journals (print and electronic).

NH.ESS1. Earth Space Science: The Earth and Earth materials, as we know them today, have developed over long periods of time, through constant change processes.

S:ESS1:12:1.1. Atmosphere, Climate, and Weather: Students will identify and describe the layers of the atmosphere.

S:ESS1:12:1.2. Atmosphere, Climate, and Weather: Students will understand the effects of solar influences, such as flares and sunspots, on atmospheric conditions.

S:ESS1:12:6.1. Rock Cycle: Students will describe the processes that transform one type of rock into another, such as lithification, metamorphosis, and weathering on a chemical level.

S:ESS1:12:6.2. Rock Cycle: Students will describe the various types of igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks found on Earth.

S:ESS1:12:7.1. Water: Students will explain that water quality can be affected positively or negatively by outside sources

NH.ESS2. Earth Space Science: The Earth is part of a solar system, made up of distinct parts, which have temporal and spatial interrelationships.

S:ESS2:12:1.1. Earth, Sun, and Moon: Students will understand how the Nebular Hypothesis, fusion, and the process of differentiation contributes to the structure and organization of the universe.

NH.ESS4. Earth Space Science: The growth of scientific knowledge in Earth Space Science has been advanced through the development of technology and is used (alone or in combination with other sciences) to identify, understand and solve local and global issues.

S:ESS4:12:1.1. Design Technology: Students will recognize the importance of technology as it relates to science, for purposes such as: access to space and other remote locations, sample collection and treatment, measurement, data collection, and storage, computation, and communication of information.

S:ESS4:12:3.1. Local and Global Environmental Issues: Students will explain the environmental effects of using both renewable and nonrenewable resources; and provide examples of how man is addressing these effects on the environment.

S:ESS4:12:3.2. Local and Global Environmental Issues: Students will provide examples of how man's use of Earth materials has changed over time; and use those examples to explain how the relationship between science and technology has gradually grown closer in the past century.

S:ESS4:12:3.3. Local and Global Environmental Issues: Students will research and evaluate a current environmental issue within the State of New Hampshire, such as a dispute regarding the conversion of a natural environment to human use; and construct a defense that supports environmental protection.

S:ESS4:12:4.1. Career Technical Education Connections: Students will understand the various scientific fields that use scientific content and skills; and distinguish between professional and skilled science jobs/careers in Earth or space sciences.

NH.LS1. Life Science: All living organisms have identifiable structures and characteristics that allow for survival (organisms, populations, and species).

S:LS1:12:1.1. Classification: Students will differentiate between prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells at the biochemical level, using cell wall composition, DNA structure, and other biochemical pathways.

S:LS1:12:2.1. Living Things and Organization: Students will compare the processes of mitosis and meiosis, including disruptions to the cycles, such as disease or cancer.

S:LS1:12:2.2. Living Things and Organization: Students will explain the process of cell differentiation, using stem cells as an example.

S:LS1:12:3.1. Reproduction: Students will compare and contrast the alternation of generations' life cycles; and understand the variations of the haploid and diploid phases that produce diplontic, haplontic, and isomorphic alternation of generations in living organisms.

NH.LS3. Life Science: Groups of organisms show evidence of change over time (e.g. evolution, natural selection, structures, behaviors, and biochemistry).

S:LS3:12:3.1. Natural Selection: Students will understand the types of mutations that cause changes in DNA and cause the appearance of new alleles, such as frameshift and point mutations, and the chromosomal mutations of insertion, deletion, translocation, and duplication.

NH.LS5. Life Science: The growth of scientific knowledge in Life Science has been advanced through the development of technology and is used (alone or in combination with other sciences) to identify, understand and solve local and global issues.

S:LS5:12:1.1. Design Technology: Students will recognize the importance of technology as it relates to science, for purposes such as: access to information about living systems, medical diagnosis, sample collection and treatment, measurement, data collection, and storage, computation, and communication of information.

S:LS5:12:3.1. Social Issues (Local And Global): Medical Technology and Biotechnology: Students will explain how genetic engineering is used to modify the DNA structure of an organism; and describe how this process is used to research and develop medically useful products, such as insulin.

S:LS5:12:3.2. Social Issues (Local And Global): Medical Technology and Biotechnology: Students will summarize arguments on both sides of a medical research controversy, such as stem cell research, cloning, or zootransplanation.

S:LS5:12:3.3. Social Issues (Local And Global): Medical Technology and Biotechnology: Students will analyze and evaluate a biotechnology system in New Hampshire that focuses on a specific goal, such as pharmaceutical development; and describe all elements of the system, identifying the costs and the benefits.

S:LS5:12:4.1. Career Technical Education Connections: Students will understand the various scientific fields that use scientific content and skills; and distinguish between professional and skilled science jobs/careers in the life sciences.

NH.PS1. Physical Science: All living and nonliving things are composed of matter having characteristic properties that distinguish one substance from another (independent of size/amount of substance).

S:PS1:12:1.1. Composition: Students will understand the basic building blocks of matter are quarks and leptons.

S:PS1:12:1.2. Composition: Students will recognize the main ideas of string theory.

S:PS1:12:1.3. Composition: Students will identify the sub-orbital shapes and geometric orientations of the orbitals electrons can occupy in atoms.

NH.PS2. Physical Science: Energy is necessary for change to occur in matter. Energy can be stored, transferred and transformed, but cannot be destroyed.

S:PS2:12:1.1. Change: Students will explain the complete mole concept and identify ways in which it can be used, such as to differentiate between actual and relative mass.

S:PS2:12:3.1. Energy: Students will explain the concept of entropy.

S:PS2:12:3.2. Energy: Students will understand that activation energy is required to make a chemical reaction proceed, whether or not it is exothermic or endothermic.

NH.PS3. Physical Science: The motion of an object is affected by force.

S:PS3:12:1.1. Forces: Students will understand the four fundamental forces found in nature: gravitation, electromagnetism, strong nuclear force, and weak nuclear force.

S:PS3:12:1.2. Forces: Students will describe the gauge particles that are exchanged by each of the fundamental forces.

S:PS3:12:1.3. Forces: Students will understand the basic principles of unified field theories.

S:PS3:12:2.1. Motion: Students will explain general concepts related to the theory of special relativity: time dilation, length contraction, and mass expansion.

S:PS3:12:2.2. Motion: Students will understand the basic idea behind the theory of general relativity.

S:PS3:12:2.3. Motion: Students will describe the predictions made by the theory of general relativity, and the evidence that supports it.

NH.PS4. Physical Science: The growth of scientific knowledge in Physical Science has been advanced through the development of technology and is used (alone or in combination with other sciences) to identify, understand and solve local and global issues.

S:PS4:12:1.1. Design Technology: Students will relate the transfer of energy through conduction, convection and radiation to design technologies.

S:PS4:12:2.1. Tools: Students will demonstrate the appropriate use of a variety of input devices, such as scanners, voice/sound recorders, and digital cameras.

S:PS4:12:3.1. Social Issues (Local and Global): Energy, Power, and Transportation Manufacturing: Students will compare two different energy systems that are used to produce large amounts of electrical power for New Hampshire residents, and describe the advantages and disadvantages of each system.

S:PS4:12:3.2. Social Issues (Local and Global): Energy, Power, and Transportation Manufacturing: Students will design a transportation system that meets most humans' need for reliable and affordable transportation, while having a minimal impact on the environment.

S:PS4:12:3.3. Social Issues (Local and Global): Energy, Power, and Transportation Manufacturing: Students will describe the various types of manufacturing systems, such as customized production, batch production, and continuous production, and explain that manufacturing results in two types of good, durable and non-durable goods.

S:PS4:12:3.4. Social Issues (Local and Global): Energy, Power, and Transportation Manufacturing: Students will understand that a manufacturing system includes design of the product and methods of obtaining raw materials, as well as actual production, marketing, sales, maintenance, servicing, repair, and final disposal of the remains of the product.

S:PS4:12:4.1. Career Technical Education Connections: Students will understand the various scientific fields that use scientific content and skills and distinguish between professional and skilled science jobs/careers in the physical sciences.