First Grade

Objectives Overviews First Grade: Science


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Your first grade student will gain knowledge about scientific inquiry, and will develop the necessary abilities to perform scientific inquiries by:

  • Asking “what happens when” questions
  • Exploring and pursuing student-generated “what happens when” questions
  • Working in a small group to complete an investigation and then sharing findings with others
  • Creating individual conclusions about group findings
  • Using appropriate tools and simple equipment/ instruments to safely gather scientific data
  • Making estimates to compare familiar lengths, weights, and time intervals
  • Using oral, written, and pictorial representations to communicate work
  • Describing things as accurately as possible and comparing them with the observations of others

Your first grade student will demonstrate an understanding of science as a human endeavor, and will examine the history and nature of science by:

  • Working alone or as a team member when engaged in science, and sharing ideas and explaining scientific findings
  • Recognizing that people of all ages, backgrounds, and groups have made contributions to science and technology
  • Discovering that when a science investigation is done the same way multiple times, one can expect to get very similar results each time it is performed
  • Demonstrating good explanations based on evidence from investigations and observations
  • Explaining that everybody can do science, invent things, and have scientific ideas, no matter who they are or where they live

Your first grade student will develop and demonstrate an understanding about science, engineering, technology, and technological design, and demonstrate abilities of technological design by:

  • Explaining how tools are designed to help people to extend their senses and solve problems
  • Using tools to measure, construct, and test their own product/design
  • Explaining how tools and technology are used to make our lives easier
  • Exploring that some kinds of materials are better suited than others for making something new
  • Explaining that when trying to build something to work better, it helps to follow directions and ask someone who has done it before
  • Identifying some materials that can be saved for community recycling projects
  • Exploring ways people use energy to cook their food and warm their homes
  • Identifying how people can save energy by turning things off when they are not using them
  • Investigating that tools are used to help make things and understand that some things cannot be made without tools
  • Exploring that several steps are usually needed to make things
  • Investigating that when parts are put together, they can do things that they could not do by themselves
  • Identifying the wheel and axle, wedge, lever, screw, inclined plane, and pulley as simple machines and how they make work easier

Your first grade student will develop and demonstrate a conceptual understanding of the characteristics of organisms, their life cycles, and their environments, and the structure and function of living systems, populations, and ecosystems on Earth by:

  • Identifying and describing the physical characteristics of plants and animals that live in their environment
  • Exploring the life cycles of organisms
  • Identifying the physical characteristics an organism needs to adapt to changes in their environment
  • Exploring that organisms, including people, have basic needs which include air, water, food, living space and shelter
  • Explaining that food comes from sources other than grocery stores
  • Exploring that humans and other animals have body parts that help to seek, find, and take in food when they are hungry
  • Identifying the characteristics of animals that live in forest, ocean, rain forest, wetland, and desert habitats
  • Investigating that animals eat plants and/or other animals for food and may also use plants or other animals for shelter and nesting
  • Recognizing that seasonal changes can influence the health, survival, or activities of the organism

Your first grade student will develop and demonstrate a conceptual understanding of Earth materials; objects in the sky; Earth’s system, history, and place in the solar system; and the organization of Earth and other celestial bodies by:

  • Comparing, classifying, and describing the properties of rocks, soil, and water
  • Describing factors that contribute to weather and its changes
  • Comparing and explaining changes in the Earth and sky
  • Identifying that resources are things that we get from the living (e.g., forests) and nonliving (e.g., minerals, water) environment and that resources are necessary to meet the needs and wants of a population
  • Explaining that the supply of many resources is limited, but the supply can be extended through careful use, decreased use, reusing and/or recycling
  • Explaining that all organisms cause changes in the environments in which they live; these changes can be very noticeable or slightly noticeable, fast or slow (e.g., spread of grass cover slowing soil erosion, tree roots slowly breaking sidewalks)

Your first grade student will develop and demonstrate a conceptual understanding of matter, motion, energy, forces, the transfer of energy, and the interactions between these things by:

  • Recognizing that matter can exist in different states
  • Demonstrating how pushing and pulling will change the movement of an object related to its speed, position, and direction
  • Exploring light, heat, and magnetism as forms of energy
  • Classifying objects according to the materials they are made of and their physical properties
  • Investigating that water can change from liquid to solid or solid to liquid
  • Exploring and observing that things can be done to materials to change their properties
  • Exploring changes that greatly change the properties of an object (e.g., burning paper) and changes that leave the properties largely unchanged (e.g., tearing paper)
  • Exploring the effects some objects have on others even when the two objects might not touch (e.g., magnets)
  • Investigating a variety of ways to make things move and what causes them to change speed, direction, and/ or stop
  • Exploring how energy makes things work
  • Recognizing that the sun is an energy source that warms the land, air, and water
  • Describing that energy can be obtained from many sources in many ways (e.g., food, gasoline, electricity, or batteries)