What does a student learn in StateNevada,GradeGrade 10,SubjectScience?

Students study what matter is made of and how it changes. They learn why substances react, combine, or break apart at the atomic level.

Students learn why objects move, slow down, or stay still by studying forces like gravity, friction, and electric attraction. They apply these ideas to real systems, from colliding cars to orbiting planets.

Students study how energy moves, changes form, and stays constant across physical systems. They connect those ideas to real devices like motors, power plants, and circuits.

Students study how waves, including light and sound, carry energy and information. They explore how those properties show up in everyday technologies like radios, cameras, and fiber-optic cables.

Students study how living things are built and how they work, from the molecules inside a single cell up to the systems that keep a whole organism alive.

Students study how living things depend on each other and their environment to survive. They trace how energy moves through food webs and explore what happens when ecosystems are disrupted by nature or human activity.

Students study how traits pass from parents to offspring and why individuals in the same species still look and act differently from one another. The focus is on genes, DNA, and the mechanisms that produce variation.

Students study how life on Earth has changed over millions of years and why so many species exist today. They look at fossil records, DNA comparisons, and inherited traits to understand how evolution shapes every living thing.

Students study how Earth fits into the larger universe, from the age and motion of our solar system to the forces that shape stars, galaxies, and space itself.

Students study how Earth's oceans, atmosphere, land, and living things interact as a system. That means tracing how energy and matter move between the air, water, rock, and life around us.

Students examine how humans depend on Earth's resources and how that use shapes the environment. The focus is on weighing real trade-offs between energy, land, water, and climate to make sense of decisions that affect everyone.

Students work through real design problems by defining what needs to be solved, testing solutions, and refining their best ideas based on evidence. The goal is a design that actually works within real-world limits like cost, safety, and available materials.

Students use the periodic table to predict how an element will behave, like whether it reacts easily or conducts electricity, based on how many electrons sit in the atom's outer shell. Where an element falls on the table reveals what it has in common with its neighbors. Wait, I used an em dash. Let me fix that. Students use the periodic table to predict how an element will behave (whether it reacts easily or conducts electricity) based on how many electrons sit in the atom's outer shell. Where an element falls on the table reveals what it has in common with its neighbors.

Students explain why certain chemicals react the way they do by looking at how atoms are built and where they sit on the periodic table. The outer electrons of each atom determine what bonds form and what new substance gets made.

Students design and run a lab to figure out why some substances are hard or easy to melt, dissolve, or break apart. The goal is to connect what they can see and measure to the invisible electrical pulls holding the substance together at the atomic level.

Chemical reactions break old bonds and form new ones. Students model how the difference in energy between those bonds determines whether a reaction releases heat into its surroundings or pulls heat in.

Changing the temperature or concentration of chemicals speeds up or slows down a reaction. Students use scientific evidence to explain why, such as how heating particles makes them collide more often and with more force.

Students figure out how to get a chemical reaction to produce more of what you want. They adjust conditions like temperature or pressure to shift the balance of the reaction toward the desired product.

In a chemical reaction, no atoms appear or disappear. Students use math to show that the total mass of the starting materials equals the total mass of the products.

Students draw or diagram what happens inside an atom's nucleus during nuclear reactions, showing how splitting, merging, or decaying nuclei release energy. This covers the science behind nuclear power and radioactive materials.

Students use real data to show how force, mass, and acceleration are connected. A heavier object needs more force to reach the same speed change, and doubling the force on an object doubles its acceleration.

Students use math to show that the total momentum of a group of moving objects stays the same when no outside force is pushing or pulling on them. Think of two skaters pushing off each other: what one gains in motion, the other loses.

Students design and test a device that cushions the impact on an object during a crash. The goal is to reduce the force the object feels, using what they know about how forces work during collisions.

Students use equations to calculate the pulling force between two massive objects and the pushing or pulling force between charged objects. Both forces follow the same pattern: they grow stronger when objects get closer and weaker as they move apart.

Students run hands-on experiments to show that electricity can create a magnetic field and that a moving magnet can generate electricity. This is the science behind motors and generators.

Students explain how the arrangement of molecules in a material determines what that material can do. A bridge cable, a bulletproof vest, a solar panel each works because of choices made at a scale too small to see.

Students use math or a computer model to track how energy moves between parts of a system. When they know how much energy each part gained or lost, they can calculate what happened to the part they're studying.

Energy isn't created or destroyed. Students build and use models to show how energy in everyday systems, like a moving car or a heated room, comes down to particles in motion or energy held in electric, magnetic, or gravitational fields.

Students design and build a real device that converts one form of energy into another, such as turning motion into electricity or heat into light, then test and improve it until it meets specific requirements.

Students mix two substances at different temperatures and track how heat moves between them until both reach the same temperature. The experiment shows that heat always flows from warmer to cooler, never the other way on its own.

Students draw or diagram two objects, like a magnet and a metal clip, to show how invisible electric or magnetic fields push or pull between them and where the energy goes as those forces act.

Students use equations to show how a wave's speed, frequency, and pitch-to-length ratio connect, and how those relationships shift depending on whether the wave moves through air, water, or another material.

Students compare digital and analog ways of sending and storing information, like music or images, and weigh the trade-offs of each. They look at why digital formats hold up better over time and across long distances.

Light behaves like a wave in some experiments and like a stream of tiny particles in others. Students weigh the evidence for both models and decide which one better explains what's happening in a given situation.

Students read published scientific sources and judge whether the claims hold up: does the evidence actually support what the article says about how radio waves, visible light, X-rays, or other radiation affect the materials that absorb them?

Students explain how real devices like radios, fiber-optic cables, and solar panels use wave behavior to send, receive, or store information and energy. The focus is on connecting the physics of waves to the technology built around them.

DNA holds the instructions for building proteins, and proteins do most of the work inside living cells. Students explain how the sequence of bases in a DNA molecule determines what protein gets built and what that protein does in the body.

Living things are built in layers: cells group into tissues, tissues form organs, and organs work together as systems. Students learn how each layer depends on the others to keep the body running.

Students design and run an experiment to show how the body keeps conditions stable, like how sweating cools you down when you overheat or how blood sugar returns to normal after a meal.

Cells copy themselves through mitosis, then specialize into skin, muscle, nerve, and other cell types. Together, these two processes build a complex body and keep it running.

Students trace how a plant captures sunlight and converts it into sugar stored in its cells. The model shows where the energy comes from and where it ends up.

Students trace how the carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen in sugar get rearranged, along with nitrogen and other elements, to build amino acids and the other large molecules that make up living things. Wait, I used an em dash. Let me fix that. Students trace how the carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen in sugar get rearranged, along with nitrogen and other elements, to build amino acids and the other large molecules that make up living things.

Cells break down food and oxygen to release usable energy. Students use diagrams or models to show how the chemical bonds in glucose and oxygen are broken and reformed into carbon dioxide, water, and the energy a cell runs on.

Students use graphs, models, or equations to explain why a habitat can only support so many animals. They analyze how food, water, space, and other limits determine the maximum population a given environment can sustain.

Students use graphs and data to explain what drives population size and species variety in an ecosystem, then revise their explanation when new evidence points a different way.

Students trace how carbon, oxygen, and other materials cycle through living things differently when oxygen is present versus when it isn't. They build an explanation, then revise it as they test it against evidence.

Students use graphs, equations, or models to show how energy moves through a food web and how matter like carbon or nitrogen cycles through living things and back into the environment.

Students trace how carbon moves through living things, the air, water, and rock by mapping what happens when plants capture sunlight and when organisms break down food. The model shows why those two processes keep carbon cycling rather than running out.

When an ecosystem is disturbed by drought, disease, or an invasive species, populations shift until a new balance forms. Students examine real evidence to decide whether a scientific claim about that process holds up.

Students design and test a plan to reduce real environmental damage caused by human activity, such as habitat loss or pollution, then revise their approach based on how well it works.

Students look at real examples from nature to figure out why animals that cooperate in groups, like hunting in packs or warning each other of predators, tend to survive and have more offspring than those acting alone.

DNA carries the instructions that determine traits like eye color or height. Students explore how those instructions are organized on chromosomes and passed from parents to children.

Students explain why offspring aren't identical to their parents. They look at how meiosis shuffles genes, how copying errors slip through during cell division, and how environmental exposure can alter DNA.

Students use probability and data to explain why traits like eye color or height vary across a population. They look at patterns in real groups to show why no two people are exactly alike.

Students gather evidence from fossils, DNA comparisons, and anatomy to explain why scientists conclude that living things share common ancestors and have changed over time.

Students explain why populations change over time by connecting four ideas: species can multiply fast, offspring inherit random genetic differences, resources run short, and the individuals best suited to their environment survive to reproduce.

Students use basic probability and population data to explain why a helpful inherited trait, like better camouflage or disease resistance, spreads through a species over generations as more offspring survive to reproduce.

Students explain, using real evidence, how traits that help an animal survive get passed down until most of the population carries them. Over generations, those small advantages add up to big changes.

When the environment changes, some species thrive, some slowly become new species, and others die out entirely. Students look at real scientific evidence and decide how well it supports each of those outcomes.

Students build or adjust a computer simulation to test whether a proposed fix, such as a wildlife corridor or land-use change, actually reduces the harm human activity causes to local species and ecosystems.

Students map the sun's life from birth to eventual burnout, explaining how nuclear fusion in the core produces the energy that travels across space and warms Earth.

Students use three types of astronomical evidence to explain the Big Bang: how light from distant stars shifts in color, how galaxies are moving away from us, and what the universe is made of.

Stars are giant element factories. Students explain how stars fuse hydrogen into heavier elements like carbon and iron during their lifetimes, and how those elements scatter into space when a star dies.

Students use math to predict where planets, moons, and other objects will be in their orbits. They apply formulas that connect gravity, mass, and distance to calculate how fast objects move and when they will appear in the sky.

Students look at rock samples and ocean floor maps to figure out why some rocks are billions of years old while others are surprisingly young. The evidence points to giant plates of Earth's crust slowly shifting, colliding, and spreading apart over time.

Students use evidence from ancient rocks, meteorites, and the surfaces of other planets to piece together how Earth formed and what its earliest history looked like.

Students map out how forces deep inside Earth and at its surface, working over millions of years or just seconds, create features like mountains, ocean trenches, and ocean ridges. The model shows how scale, both in size and time, shapes the planet's geography.

Students look at real data, like temperature records or satellite images, to show how one change on Earth's surface sets off a chain reaction. Melting ice, for example, exposes darker ocean water, which absorbs more heat and speeds up further warming.

Students build a diagram or model showing how heat from deep inside Earth moves rock and material slowly upward, then back down, in a continuous loop. That circulation drives plate movement and shapes the surface above.

Students use diagrams or simulations to explain how shifts in incoming solar energy or outgoing heat change long-term weather patterns across regions.

Students plan and run experiments to explore how water behaves and how it shapes the land around it, from wearing down rock to moving soil.

Students build a model that tracks how carbon moves through the ocean, air, rocks, and living things, then use real numbers to show how much carbon shifts between each part of the system.

Students build an argument, using fossil records and geologic evidence, for how living things and Earth's systems (atmosphere, oceans, land) have changed each other over billions of years.

Students examine how access to oil, fresh water, and farmland, along with floods, earthquakes, and shifting weather patterns, has shaped where and how people build, farm, and settle over time.

Students compare real proposals for mining or energy production, weighing what each option costs against what it delivers. The goal is to decide which solution makes the most practical sense given the trade-offs.

Students build a computer model that shows how choices about water, land, or energy use ripple through ecosystems and affect whether species and human communities can survive long term.

Students look at a real design (a water filter, a levee, a fuel system) and judge whether it actually reduces harm to the environment, then suggest specific improvements if it falls short.

Students study real climate data and computer models to predict how fast Earth's climate is changing and what that means for oceans, weather, and ecosystems in the years ahead.

Students use computer models or simulations to show how oceans, atmosphere, land, and living things interact, and how human activity is shifting those connections.

Students pick a real-world problem, such as clean water access or energy use, and spell out exactly what a good solution must do and what limits it must work within, including costs, materials, and community needs.

Students take a messy, real-world problem and split it into smaller pieces that are actually solvable. Each piece gets its own solution, and together those solutions make up a working design.

Students pick the best solution to a real problem by weighing what matters most: cost, safety, reliability, and how the design affects people and the environment. No solution is perfect, so students explain which trade-offs are worth making.

Students run a computer simulation to test how a proposed solution to a real-world problem actually behaves. The simulation shows how different parts of a system affect each other before anyone builds anything.