What does a student learn in StateWashington,GradeGrade 6,SubjectScience?

Students study what matter is made of and how it changes. They look at the building blocks of substances and explain why some materials react with each other while others don't.

Students learn why objects speed up, slow down, or change direction by studying the forces acting on them. They also explore how some forces, like gravity and magnetism, can push or pull without anything touching.

Students trace how energy moves and changes form, such as from heat to motion or from stored chemical energy to light. The focus is on patterns in how energy flows through objects and systems.

Students study how waves carry energy and information, from sound and light to radio signals and digital images. They also explore how modern technologies use those waves to send and receive data.

Living things are made of cells, and those cells carry out the chemical processes that keep an organism alive, growing, and able to reproduce. Students learn how structure at every scale, from molecules to organs, connects to function.

Students learn how living things depend on each other and their environment to survive. They trace how energy moves through a food web and explore what happens when a species disappears or a habitat changes.

Students study how traits pass from parents to offspring and why siblings can look alike but not identical. The focus is on genes, inherited characteristics, and why living things vary even within the same family.

Students study how life on Earth has changed over millions of years. They look at fossils, inherited traits, and natural selection to understand why species look different today than they did long ago.

Students study the size and structure of the universe, from Earth's position in the solar system out to galaxies beyond our own. They learn how gravity, light, and time explain what we see in the night sky.

Students study how Earth's land, water, air, and living things interact as systems. They trace how energy and matter move through those systems to explain weather, erosion, and other changes on Earth's surface.

Students study how natural resources, natural hazards, and human activity shape each other. The focus is on real tradeoffs: how people use the land, water, and air, and what happens when that use goes too far.

Students learn why substances look, feel, and behave the way they do by studying how atoms and molecules interact. They use that knowledge to design something that heats up or cools down on purpose.

Students draw or diagram simple substances to show how atoms link together, whether in a small molecule like water or a repeating structure like a crystal or metal.

Students look at measurements and observations taken before and after two substances are mixed, then decide whether a chemical reaction happened or just a physical change.

Synthetic materials like plastic, nylon, and medicine are made from natural resources such as oil or plants. Students research where these human-made materials come from and weigh the trade-offs they create for people and the environment.

When heat is added to or removed from a substance, its particles speed up or slow down. Students model how that change in motion explains why ice melts, water boils, or steam condenses back into liquid.

In a chemical reaction, atoms rearrange into new substances but none are created or destroyed. Students build and use models to show why the total mass before and after a reaction stays the same.

Students design and build a device that uses a chemical reaction to either heat up or cool down, then test and improve it. Think hand warmers or instant cold packs.

Students collect data from experiments to explain how forces like pushes and pulls cause objects to move. Then they use what they find to design a solution for what happens when objects collide.

When two objects collide, each one pushes back on the other with equal force. Students use that idea to design a solution to a real collision problem, like cushioning an impact or redirecting motion.

Students plan and run an experiment to show that how much an object speeds up or slows down depends on how hard it gets pushed or pulled, and how heavy it is.

Students investigate what makes electric and magnetic forces stronger or weaker. They look at data and ask questions about distance, materials, and charge to figure out what changes the pull or push between objects.

Students build an argument, using evidence, that gravity pulls objects together and that the pull grows stronger as objects get heavier. Two planets pull on each other more than two pebbles do.

Two magnets push or pull each other without touching. Students investigate how invisible fields between objects create real forces, and judge whether an experiment actually tests what it claims to test.

Students gather evidence and build models to explain how energy moves between objects. Then they apply what they learned to design something that controls heat transfer, like insulating a container or improving a heating system.

Students read and build graphs that show how a moving object's energy grows when it gets heavier or faster. A heavier car rolling downhill carries more energy than a lighter one, and a faster ball hits harder than a slow one.

Objects that interact at a distance store energy based on their position. Students model how that stored energy changes when the objects move closer together or farther apart, like a magnet near metal or a ball held above the ground.

Students design and build a device that either traps heat or lets it escape, then test whether it works. Think of it as engineering a mini cooler or a hand warmer and measuring how well it does its job.

Students plan and run an experiment to see how the mass and type of a material affect how much its temperature rises when heat is added.

When a moving object speeds up or slows down, energy has moved into or out of it. Students build an argument explaining where that energy came from or where it went.

Students learn how waves carry energy and information, then use diagrams and simple math to describe properties like wavelength and frequency. This shows up in real tools: radios, phones, and medical imaging all depend on wave behavior.

Waves carry energy, and the bigger the wave, the more energy it holds. Students use graphs and equations to show how a wave's height (amplitude) connects to the amount of energy it carries.

Waves behave differently depending on what they hit. Students learn to use diagrams or models to show how a wave can bounce off a surface, pass through a material, or get soaked up by it, and how that changes what we see or hear.

Digitized signals break information into simple on/off pulses that survive interference better than analog signals do. Students learn why a phone call, photo, or song stays clear when transmitted as digital data rather than as a continuously varying wave.

Cells are the building blocks of every living thing. Students study how cells work together to form tissues, organs, and whole organisms, using diagrams and real evidence to explain why living things are built the way they are.

Students investigate living things under a microscope to see that every organism, from a single bacterium to a plant or animal, is built from cells. Some organisms are just one cell; others have millions working together.

Students learn how a cell works as a system. They build or use a model showing how parts like the nucleus and membrane each do a specific job that keeps the whole cell running.

The human body is made of smaller systems (like the digestive or circulatory system) that work together to keep you alive. Students use evidence to explain how groups of cells build those systems and how the systems depend on each other.

Students use real evidence to explain how animal behaviors and plant structures help living things reproduce. Think migration, mating calls, or flowers attracting pollinators.

Students learn what shapes how living things grow, including genes passed down from parents and outside conditions like food, water, and temperature. They practice backing up their explanation with real evidence.

Plants and algae capture sunlight and turn it into food, releasing oxygen in the process. Students explain how this keeps carbon, water, and energy moving through living things.

Students trace what happens to food inside the body, showing how it breaks apart and reassembles into new substances that either build new tissue or release energy for the body to use.

Sensory receptors in the eyes, ears, skin, and nose pick up signals from the world and send them to the brain. The brain uses those signals to react right away or to store the experience as a memory.

Students examine how plants, animals, water, soil, and sunlight depend on each other in an ecosystem. Then they use that knowledge to design solutions that keep the ecosystem healthy.

When food, water, or space runs low, populations shrink. Students study real data to explain how resource availability shapes which organisms survive and how many can live in one place.

Students look at how animals and plants interact across different ecosystems and predict what those patterns will look like. For example, predator-prey relationships that appear in one ecosystem often follow similar rules in another.

Students trace how matter like water, carbon, and nutrients moves in a loop through living things and the soil, air, and water around them, and how energy from the sun flows through that same system without looping back.

When a river dries up or a predator disappears, the populations of other species in that ecosystem shift too. Students build an argument using real data showing how changes to the physical environment or to living things ripple through an ecosystem.

Students look at real proposals for protecting wildlife and healthy ecosystems, then decide which solution works best and explain why.

Students learn why children look like their parents but not exactly like them. They use models to show how traits like eye color pass from parent to child, and why the environment can also shape how those traits turn out.

Students learn why a small change in DNA can alter the proteins a cell builds, and why that change might make an organism sicker, stronger, or completely unchanged.

Asexual reproduction makes offspring that are genetic copies of one parent. Sexual reproduction mixes genetic information from two parents, which is why siblings can look similar but not identical.

Students study fossils, body structures, and population data to explain why species look and behave differently than their ancestors did when the environment around them changed.

Students examine fossil evidence to find patterns in how life on Earth has changed over millions of years, including which creatures existed, which died out, and how species shifted over time.

Students compare body structures across living and extinct species to figure out which animals share a common ancestor. A fish fin, a bird wing, and a human arm, for example, all hint at the same ancient origin.

Students look at drawings of animal embryos at different stages of growth and compare how similar they look across species. The resemblances reveal family relationships that adult bodies often hide.

Some traits help an animal survive long enough to have offspring, and others don't. Students study how those helpful traits spread through a population over generations when the environment favors them.

Selective breeding, genetic engineering, and similar technologies let humans speed up or reshape how traits pass from parent to offspring. Students research how these tools work and what they mean for plants, animals, and ecosystems.

Students use graphs or data tables to show how a helpful trait spreads through a population over generations, and how a harmful one fades. Natural selection is the reason the numbers shift.

Students learn why Earth has seasons, how eclipses happen, and what fossils and rock layers tell us about Earth's past. They use data and models to explain how Earth moves through a universe far larger than our solar system.

Students learn why the moon looks different each night, why solar and lunar eclipses happen, and why seasons change. They use models of the Earth, sun, and moon to show how the motion of each one drives these patterns.

Gravity pulls every planet, moon, and star toward other objects with mass. Students build and use a model to show how that pull keeps planets orbiting the sun and moons orbiting planets.

Students compare the actual sizes and distances of planets, moons, and the sun using data and models, building a sense of just how vast the solar system really is.

Students study layers of rock like pages in a book, using the order and age of those layers to piece together Earth's 4.6-billion-year history. The geologic time scale organizes that history into named chunks of time.

Students study how rock, water, air, and living things push and pull on each other to shape the ground beneath our feet. They use data and models to explain why those changes happen.

Students map how rocks, soil, and minerals move through a slow cycle of melting, cooling, and wearing away. Heat from inside the Earth and energy from the sun drive the whole process.

Geoscience processes like erosion, volcanic eruptions, and shifting rock layers have reshaped Earth's surface over millions of years. Students use evidence to explain how those changes happen at different speeds and across different scales, from a single hillside to an entire continent.

Students look at where fossils, rock layers, and ocean floor ridges show up on a map to figure out how Earth's tectonic plates have shifted and drifted over millions of years.

Students trace how water moves from oceans to clouds to rain and back again, then build a diagram or model showing what drives that cycle: heat from the sun and the pull of gravity.

Students track how air masses move and collide to explain why weather changes from day to day. They gather real data, like temperature and wind readings, to support their conclusions.

Uneven heating from the sun and Earth's spin set the atmosphere and oceans in motion. Those moving air and water patterns decide whether a region is typically hot, cold, wet, or dry.

Students study how human actions, like mining or burning fuel, change land, water, and air. They also design ways to track and reduce that damage.

Students learn why coal, oil, fresh water, and metal ores are found in some places and not others. They use evidence to explain how geological processes, past and present, put those resources where they are.

Students study real data from earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, floods, and other natural hazards to spot patterns. The goal is predicting when disasters might strike and figuring out how to reduce the damage they cause.

Students design a real plan to track and reduce a human impact on the environment, such as pollution or habitat loss, using science to guide each decision they make.

Students gather data on population growth and resource use, then build a written argument explaining how more people consuming more resources puts pressure on land, water, and air.

Students look at real data from the past hundred years and ask questions about what has driven the rise in global temperatures, including natural factors and human activity.

Students pick a real problem, design a solution, and test it using models and data. They also weigh how their solution affects people and the environment before deciding whether it works or needs changes.

Students identify what a solution must do and what it cannot do before they start building anything. They weigh real-world limits like cost, safety, and environmental impact to make sure the design will actually work.

Students compare different engineering designs side by side to figure out which one best solves the problem within real-world limits like cost, materials, or safety.

Students look at test results from multiple design ideas, spot what works best in each, and combine those strengths into one improved design that better solves the original problem.

Students build and test a model of their design, then use what they learn from each test to improve it. The goal is to keep refining until the design works as well as it can.

Students identify a real environmental problem in their community and build a project to address it, connecting how nature, people, and money are all tied together. The goal is action, not just a report.

Students research a real environmental problem, then build and present a plan to address it. That plan must account for how nature, people, and money are connected at the neighborhood, state, or national level.

Students pick something in their neighborhood, like a road, a park, or a factory, and investigate how it affects local air, water, or wildlife. They collect real data and present what they find.

Students pick a real environmental problem in their community, research possible fixes, take action on one, and present what they found. The project shows what students know and what they think citizens should do about it.