Galaxies

Correlations to Project 2061 Benchmarks in Science Education

The Project 2061 Benchmarks in Science Education is a report, originally published in 1993 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), that lists what students should know about scientific literacy. The report lists facts and concepts about science and the scientific process that all students should know at different grade levels.

The report is divided and subdivided into different content areas. Within each subarea, the report lists benchmarks for students completing grade 2, grade 5, grade 8, and grade 12.

This page lists all the Project 2061 Benchmarks met by the Galaxies project. Content headings are listed as Roman numerals, subheadings as letters, grade levels by numbers, and specific points by numbers after the hyphen. For example, benchmark IA8-2 means the second benchmark for eighth grade students in the first content area, first subarea.

The Galaxies unit meets the following Project 2061 Benchmarks:

IA12-2, IVA8-1, IVA8-2, IVE12-4, IVE12-5.

Standards

IA12-2. From time to time, major shifts occur in the scientific view of how the world works. More often, however, the changes that take place in the body of scientific knowledge are small modifications of prior knowledge. Change and continuity are persistent features of science.

IVA8-1. The sun is a medium-sized star located near the edge of a disk-shaped galaxy of stars, part of which can be seen as a glowing band of light that spans the sky on a very clear night. The universe contains many billions of galaxies, and each galaxy contains many billions of stars. To the naked eye, even the closest of these galaxies is no more than a dim, fuzzy spot.

IVA8-2. The sun is many thousands of times closer to the earth than any other star. Light from the sun takes a few minutes to reach the earth, but light from the next nearest star takes a few years to arrive. The trip to that star would take the fastest rocket thousands of years. Some distant galaxies are so far away that their light takes several billion years to reach the earth. People on earth, therefore, see them as they were that long ago in the past.

IVE12-4. Different energy levels are associated with different configurations of atoms and molecules. Some changes of configuration require an input of energy whereas others release energy.

IVE12-5. When energy of an isolated atom or molecule changes, it does so in a definite jump from one value to another, with no possible values in between. The change in energy occurs when radiation is absorbed or emitted, so the radiation also has distinct energy values. As a result, the light emitted or absorbed by separate atoms or molecules (as in a gas) can be used to identify what the substance is.

Correlations to NCTM Principles and Standards for School Mathematics

Principles and Standards for School Mathematics was released in 2000 by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. The standards, a collaboration between education researchers and school mathematics teachers, lists what concepts students should understand, and what skills they should possess, at different stages of their mathematics education.

The report is divided and subdivided into ten different content areas. Within the first six areas, the report lists benchmarks for students completing grade 2, grade 5, grade 8, and grade 12.

Content headings are listed as Roman numerals, subheadings as letters, grade levels as numbers, and specific points by numbers after the hyphen. For example, standard IA8-2 means the second standard for eighth grade students in the first content area, first subarea. Content areas VI through X, which concern skill processes in mathematics, are not divided into subareas or grade levels. The standards met by the Galaxies project are:

IA8-1, IC8-1, IC12-2, IIB12-3, IIB12-5, IIC12-3, VA8-1, VC8-2, VC8-3, VI-2, VI-3,
VIII-2, X-3.

Standards

IA8-1. Work flexibly with fractions, decimals, and percents to solve problems.

IC8-1. Select appropriate methods and tools for computing with fractions and decimals from among mental computation, estimation, calculators or computers, and paper and pencil, depending on the situation, and apply the selected methods.

IC12-2. Judge the reasonableness of numerical computations and their results.

IIB12-3. Write equivalent forms of equations, inequalities, and systems of equations and solve them with fluency - mentally or with paper and pencil in simple cases and using technology in all cases.

IIB12-5. Judge the meaning, utility, and reasonableness of the results of symbol manipulations, including those carried out by technology.

IIC12-3. Draw reasonable conclusions about a situation being modeled.

VA8-1. Formulate questions, design studies, and collect data about a characteristic shared by two populations or different characteristics within one population.

VC8-2. Make conjectures about possible relationships between two characteristics of a sample on the basis of scatterplots of the data and approximate lines of fit.

VC8-3. Use conjectures to formulate new questions and plan new studies to answer them.

VI-2. Solve problems that arise in mathematics and other contexts.

VI-3. Adapt and apply a variety of appropriate strategies to solve problems.

VIII-2. Communicate their mathematical thinking coherently and clearly to peers, teachers, and others.

X-3. Use representations to model and interpret physical, social, and mathematical phenomena.