Grade 1 Science Tutor
The first grade curriculum deals mostly with grasping an understanding of life systems and the characteristics of living things, including humans, plants and animals.
Overall Expectations
- Assess the role of humans in maintaining a healthy environment
- Investigate needs and characteristics of plants and animals, including humans
- Demonstrate an understanding of the basic needs and characteristics of plants and animals, including humans
- Assess the impact on people and the environment of objects and structures and the materials used in them
- Investigate structures that are built for a specific purpose to see how their design and materials suit that purpose
- Demonstrate an understanding that objects and structures have observable characteristics and are made from materials with specific properties that determine how they are used
- Investigate daily and seasonal changes and assess the impact of these changes on living things
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Grade 1 Science Sample Curriculum
Understanding of life systems and the characteristics of living things
- Identify personal action that they can take to help maintain a healthy environment
- Describe changes or problems that could result from the loss of some kinds of living things that are part of everyday life
- Follow established safety procedures and humane practices during science and technology investigations
- Investigate and compare the basic needs of humans and other living things, including the need for air, water, food, warmth, and space
- Investigate and compare the physical characteristics of a variety of plants and animals
- Investigate the physical characteristics of plants and explain how they help the plant meet its basic needs
- Investigate characteristics of parts of the human body, including the five sense organs, and explain how those characteristics help humans meet their needs and explore the world
- Use appropriate science and technology vocabulary, including investigation, explore, needs, space, and food, in oral and written communication
- Use a variety of forms to communicate with different audiences and for a variety of purposes
- Identify environment as the area in which something or someone exists or lives
- Identify the physical characteristics of a variety of plants and animals
- Identify the location and function of major parts of the human body, including sense organs
Understanding Structures and mechanisms
- Identify the kinds of waste produced in the classroom, and plan and carry out a classroom course of action for minimizing waste
- Assess objects in their environment that are constructed for similar purposes
- Follow established safety procedures during science and technology investigations
- Investigate characteristics of various objects and structures, using their senses
- Investigate, through experimentation, the properties of various materials
- Use technological problem-solving skills and knowledge acquired from previous investigations, to design, build, and test a structure for a specific purpose
- Use appropriate science and technology vocabulary, including experiment, explore, purpose, rigid, flexible, solid, and smooth
- Describe objects as things that are made of one or more materials
- Describe structures as supporting frameworks
- Describe the function/purpose of the observable characteristics of various objects and structures, using information gathered through their senses
- Identify the materials that make up objects and structures
- Distinguish between objects (including structures) and materials found in nature and those made by humans
- Describe the properties of materials that enable the objects and structures made from them to perform their intended function
- List different kinds of fasteners and describe the uses of each
Understanding Matter and Energy
- Describe their own and their family’s uses of energy; identify ways in which these uses are efficient or wasteful, taking different points of view into consideration
- Describe how the everyday lives of different people and other living things would be affected if electrical energy were no longer available
- Investigate how the sun affects the air, land, and/or water, using a variety of methods
- Design and construct a device that uses energy to perform a task
- Investigate and compare seasonal differences in the ways we use energy and the types of energy we use
- Use scientific inquiry/experimentation skills and knowledge acquired from previous investigations, to explore the effects of light and heat from the sun
- Investigate how the sun’s energy allows humans to meet their basic needs, including the need for food
- Use appropriate science and technology vocabulary, including explore, investigate, design, energy, and survival
- Use a variety of forms to communicate with different audiences and for a variety of purposes
- Demonstrate an understanding that energy is what makes the things they do or see happen
- Demonstrate an understanding that the sun, as the earth’s principal source of energy, warms the air, land, and water; is a source of light for the earth; and makes it possible to grow food
- Identify food as a source of energy for themselves and other living things
- Identify everyday uses of various sources of energy
- Demonstrate an understanding that humans get the energy resources they need from the world around them and that the supply of many of these resources is limited so care needs to be taken in how we use them
Understanding Earth and Space Systems
- Assess the impact of daily and seasonal changes on human outdoor activities and identify innovations that allow for some of these activities to take place indoors out of season
- Assess ways in which daily and seasonal changes have an impact on society and the environment
- Investigate the changes in the amount of light from the sun that occur throughout the day and year
- Investigate the changes in the amount of heat from the sun that occur throughout the day and in the various seasons
- Investigate the changes in the amount of heat from the sun that occur throughout the day and in the various seasons
- Use scientific inquiry/research skills to identify daily and/or seasonal changes and their effects
- Use appropriate science and technology vocabulary, including investigate, temperature, hibernate, dormant, energy, and survival
- Use a variety of forms to communicate with different audiences and for a variety of purposes
- Define a cycle as a circular sequence of events
- Describe and compare the four seasons
- Describe changes in the appearance or behavior of living things that are adaptations to seasonal changes
- Describe how humans prepare for and/or respond to daily and seasonal changes
