Grade 7 Science Tutor
Grade seven will introduce students to form and function with a focus on interactions in the environment. They will also investigate pure substances and mixtures and investigate heat in the environment.
Overall Expectations
- Assess the impacts of human activities and technologies on the environment, and evaluate ways of controlling these impacts
- Investigate interactions within the environment, and identify factors that affect the balance between different components of an ecosystem
- Demonstrate an understanding of interactions between and among biotic and abiotic elements in the environment
- Analyse personal, social, economic, and environmental factors that need to be considered in designing and building structures and devices
- Design and construct a variety of structures, and investigate the relationship between the design and function of these structures and the forces that act on them
- Demonstrate an understanding of the relationship between structural forms and the forces that act on and within them
- Evaluate the social and environmental impacts of the use and disposal of pure substances and mixtures
- Investigate the properties and applications of pure substances and mixtures
- Demonstrate an understanding of the properties of pure substances and mixtures, and describe these characteristics using the particle theory
- Assess the costs and benefits of technologies that reduce heat loss or heat-related impacts on the environment
- Investigate ways in which heat changes substances, and describe how heat is transferred
- Demonstrate an understanding of heat as a form of energy that is associated with the movement of particles and is essential to many processes within the earth’s systems
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Grade 7 Science Sample Curriculum
Understanding life systems: Interactions in the environment
- Assess the impact of selected technologies on the environment
- Analyse the costs and benefits of selected strategies for protecting the environment
- Design and construct a model ecosystem, and use it to investigate interactions between the biotic and abiotic components in an ecosystem
- Investigate occurrences that affect the balance within a local ecosystem
- Use appropriate science and technology vocabulary, including sustainability, biotic, ecosystem, community, population, and producer
- Demonstrate an understanding of an ecosystem as a system of interactions between living organisms and their environment
- Identify biotic and abiotic elements in an ecosystem, and describe the interactions between them
- Describe the roles and interactions of producers, consumers, and decomposers within an ecosystem
- Describe the transfer of energy in a food chain and explain the effects of the elimination of any part of the chain
- Describe how matter is cycled within the environment and explain how it promotes sustainability
- Distinguish between primary succession and secondary succession within an ecosystem
- Explain why an ecosystem is limited in the number of living things that it can support
- Describe ways in which human activities and technologies alter balances and interactions in the environment
- Describe Aboriginal perspectives on sustainability and describe ways in which they can be used in habitat and wildlife management
Understanding structures and mechanisms: Form and function
- Evaluate the importance for individuals, society, the economy, and the environment of factors that should be considered in designing and building structures and devices to meet specific needs
- Evaluate the impact of ergonomic design on the safety and efficiency of workplaces, tools, and everyday objects, and describe changes that could be made in personal spaces and activities on the basis of this information
- Design, construct, and use physical models to investigate the effects of various forces on structures
- Investigate the factors that determine the ability of a structure to support a load
- Determine the most efficient way for a structure to support a given load
- Investigate methods used by engineers to ensure structural safety
- Use appropriate science and technology vocabulary, including truss, beam, ergonomics, shear, and torsion
- Classify structures as solid structures, frame structures, or shell structures
- Describe ways in which the centre of gravity of a structure affects the structure’s stability
- Identify the magnitude, direction, point of application, and plane of application of the forces applied to a structure
- Distinguish between external forces and internal forces acting on a structure
- Describe the role of symmetry in structures
- Identify and describe factors that can cause a structure to fail
- Identify the factors that determine the suitability of materials for use in manufacturing a product
Understanding Matter and Energy: Pure substances and mixtures
- Assess positive and negative environmental impacts related to the disposal of pure substances and mixtures
- Assess the impact on society and the environment of different industrial methods of separating mixtures and solutions
- Investigate factors that affect the solubility of a substance and the rate at which substances dissolve
- Investigate processes used for separating different mixtures
- Investigate the properties of mixtures and solutions
- Use appropriate science and technology vocabulary, including mechanical mixture, solution, solute, insoluble, saturated, unsaturated, and dilute
- Distinguish between pure substances and mixtures
- State the postulates of the particle theory of matter
- Use the particle theory to describe the difference between pure substances and mixtures
- Distinguish between solutions and mechanical mixtures
- Describe the processes used to separate mixtures or solutions into their components, and identify some industrial applications of these processes
- Identify the components of a solution
- Identify solutes and solvents in various kinds of solutions
- Describe the concentration of a solution in qualitative terms and in quantitative terms
- Describe the difference between saturated and unsaturated solutions
- Explain why water is referred to as the universal solvent
Understanding Earth and Space Systems: Heat in the environment
- Assess the social and environmental benefits of technologies that reduce heat loss or transfer
- Assess the environmental and economic impacts of using conventional and alternative forms of energy
- Investigate the effects of heating and cooling on the volume of a solid, a liquid, and a gas
- Identify ways to minimize heat loss
- To investigate heat transfer through conduction, convection, and radiation
- Use appropriate science and technology vocabulary, including heat, temperature, conduction, convection, and radiation
- Use the particle theory to compare how heat affects the motion of particles in a solid, a liquid, and a gas
- Identify ways in which heat is produced
- Use the particle theory to explain the effects of heat on volume in solids, liquids, and gases
- Explain how heat is transmitted through conduction, convection and radiation and describe natural processes that are affected by conduction, convection and radiation
- Describe the effects of radiation from the sun on different kinds of surfaces
- Describe the role of radiation in heating and cooling the earth, and explain how greenhouse gases affect the transmission of radiated heat through the atmosphere
- Identify common sources of greenhouse gases and describe ways of reducing emissions of these gases
