What does a student learn in StateTennessee,GradeGrade 4,SubjectScience?

Students explore how energy moves and changes form, from heat warming a surface to sound traveling through the air. They learn what energy does, not just what it is.

Students learn how waves carry energy and information, from sound waves you can hear to light waves you can see. They also explore how phones, cameras, and other devices use waves to send and receive signals.

Students study how living things in an ecosystem depend on each other and on their surroundings to survive. They look at how energy moves through a food chain and what happens when something in that system changes.

Students learn why living things look different from one another and how those differences help some survive. They study traits passed down through generations and how species change over long periods of time.

Students learn why the sun appears to move across the sky each day and why seasons change. It comes down to how Earth spins and travels around the sun.

Students study how Earth's land, water, and weather interact as a system. They learn how wind and water shape the land over time and how scientists map those changes.

Students study how humans use natural resources like water, soil, and fuel, and what happens when those resources run low or the land is changed.

Students learn to spot a problem, come up with possible fixes, and test which one works best. The focus is on how engineers think through real challenges, not just build things.

Students learn how engineers, scientists, and everyday tools connect to solve real problems. They explore how new technology changes life at home, at school, and in the wider world.

Faster-moving objects have more energy. Students use observations and data to explain how an object's speed affects the energy it carries, like comparing a slow-rolling ball to one thrown hard.

Students crash objects together at different speeds to see what happens to their shape. The faster the collision, the more the objects dent, crumple, or change.

Stored energy can be released and put to work. Students explain how a battery powers a toy or a stretched spring launches an object, tracing how energy changes form to make something happen.

Students learn what the peaks and valleys of a wave look like, and how to measure a wave's height and length. When two waves meet, students figure out whether they build each other up or flatten each other out.

Students learn why objects look different colors depending on the light hitting them, and why a straw in a glass of water looks bent. Light waves shift direction when they pass through different materials, and the color we see depends on which light is present.

Lenses in glasses, microscopes, and cameras bend light to sharpen or magnify what we see. Students also explore how phones and computers send and receive information using invisible waves traveling through the air.

Students draw or build a food web showing how energy moves from sunlight to plants, then to the animals that eat those plants, and finally to the organisms that break down dead matter.

Plants make food from sunlight, animals eat plants or other animals, and decomposers break down what dies. Students trace these connections in a food web and explain how each living thing finds what it needs to survive.

Students use diagrams or food webs to show what happens when a plant or animal is added to or removed from an ecosystem. A change to one species ripples through others, often throwing the whole system off balance.

When a pond dries up or a forest burns, animals and plants respond differently. Students study real data to understand why some survive, some die, and some move to find better conditions.

Fossils are the preserved remains or traces of ancient plants and animals. Students study what fossils reveal about creatures that no longer exist and the kinds of environments those creatures lived in.

Rocks, rivers, and wind slowly wear down and move earth over thousands of years, reshaping mountains, valleys, and coastlines. Students make a claim about how these forces changed a landscape and back it up with evidence.

Fossils found in layers of rock tell a story about time. Students read those layers like pages in a book, using which fossils appear where to figure out which rock formed first and which came later.

Rocks and soil don't stay in one place forever. Students study how natural forces like freezing water, wind, and moving ice slowly break rocks apart and carry the pieces to new locations.

Maps show where earthquakes, volcanoes, mountain ranges, and ocean trenches show up around the world. Students use that data to spot patterns in where these features tend to cluster.

Living things change the land around them. Tree roots hold soil in place, beavers dam streams, and pavement changes where rainwater flows. Students find real examples that show how plants and animals shape the ground, water, and landscape where they live.

Students learn where energy and materials come from by looking at natural resources. They sort those resources into ones that replenish on their own, like sunlight and wind, and ones that run out, like coal and minerals.

Students research how human activities like farming, mining, and building change the land and ocean, then use that evidence to argue whether those changes are helpful, harmful, or both.

Students test two or more design solutions side by side and sort them by how well each one meets the given requirements. The goal is to find which solution works best, not just whether it works at all.

Technology gets better over time because people find ways to make it safer, more useful, or easier to get. Students learn how everyday inventions like seatbelts or phones were redesigned to solve real problems people had.