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

Students learn to separate questions that science can actually test from ones it can't, then frame those questions clearly enough to investigate or build a solution around.

Students build diagrams, charts, or physical models to explain how something in nature works or how an engineered design functions. The model shows relationships and patterns that would be hard to see from a description alone.

Students design a test, collect real data, and use what they find to check whether an idea holds up.

Students look at data from an experiment or investigation and explain what it shows. They spot trends and patterns, then connect those findings to a real scientific question.

Students use math, such as ratios or simple calculations, to back up a scientific claim. Numbers and patterns help explain what the data actually shows.

Students take what they observed or measured and write an explanation that connects the evidence to a scientific idea. The explanation has to hold up, meaning the evidence and the reasoning have to fit together.

Students look at two or more scientific explanations or solutions, weigh the evidence behind each, and argue for which one holds up better. The goal is to show why one answer works and another doesn't, using data and reasoning as support.

Students read scientific sources, judge whether the information holds up, and share what they learned in writing, diagrams, or discussion. The focus is on finding real evidence and explaining it clearly to others.

Students examine how atoms and molecules fit together and interact to explain everyday physical phenomena, such as why substances change state or mix the way they do.

Students learn why objects speed up, slow down, or stay still. They apply Newton's laws to explain pushes, pulls, and collisions, and explore why energy and momentum stay constant in a closed system.

Students trace how energy moves and changes form, from a moving ball to heat or sound, and learn that the total amount stays the same even when it shifts.

Students explore how waves, like sound and light, carry energy and information from one place to another. They look at real examples, from radio signals to medical imaging, to understand how wave behavior makes modern communication possible.

Cells are the building blocks of living things. Students study how cells group into tissues, organs, and body systems, and how each level works together to keep an organism alive.

Students trace how food, water, and nutrients move through an ecosystem and how living things depend on each other to survive. They examine feeding relationships and energy flow from plants to animals and beyond.

Students study how traits like eye color or height pass from parents to offspring, and why siblings can look similar but not identical. They explore what gets inherited and what varies from one generation to the next.

Students examine why living things share common traits and why they differ, then explore how those differences build up over generations through natural selection and other forces that drive evolution.

Students study where Earth sits in the solar system and how the planets move in predictable patterns. They also look at how Earth itself formed and changed over billions of years.

Students study Earth's four major systems (land, water, air, and living things) and trace how a change in one system ripples into the others.

Students study how things like farming, building, and burning fuel change the land, air, and water around them. They also look at how earthquakes, floods, and other natural events shape where and how people live.

Students identify a real problem, brainstorm solutions, and build or sketch a design. Then they test it, find what isn't working, and revise until it works better.

New tools and systems shape how people live, and the problems people face shape what engineers build next. Students study how these two forces push and pull on each other across history and in everyday life.