Download 4th gr. Sc.at a Glance

Grade Four - Science Content Standards
Physical Sciences
Electricity and magnetism are related effects that have many useful applications in everyday life.
As a basis for understanding this concept:
1a) Design and build simple series and parallel circuits by using components such as
wires, batteries, and bulbs.
1b) Build a simple compass and use it to detect magnetic effects including Earth's
magnetic field.
1c) Electric currents produce magnetic fields and know how to build a simple
electromagnet.
1d) The role of electromagnets in the construction of electric motors, electric generators,
and simple devices, such as doorbells and earphones.
1e) Electrically charged objects attract or repel each other.
1f) Magnets have two poles (north and south) and that like poles repel each other while
unlike poles attract each other.
1g) Electrical energy can be converted to heat, light, and motion.
Life Sciences
All organisms need energy and matter to live and grow. As a basis for understanding this
concept:
2a) Plants are the primary source of matter and energy entering most food chains.
2b) Producers and consumers (herbivores, carnivores, omnivores, and decomposers) are
related in food chains and food webs and may compete with each other for resources in
an ecosystem.
2c) Decomposers, including many fungi, insects, and microorganisms, recycle matter
from dead plants and animals.
Living organisms depend on one another and on their environment for survival. As a basis for
understanding this concept:
3a) Ecosystems can be characterized by their living and nonliving components.
3b) In any particular environment, some kinds of plants and animals survive well, some
survive less well, and some cannot survive at all.
3c) Many plants depend on animals for pollination and seed dispersal, and animals
depend on plants for food and shelter.
3d) Most microorganisms do not cause disease and that many are beneficial.
Earth Sciences
The properties of rocks and minerals reflect the processes that formed them. As a basis for
understanding this concept:
4a) Differentiate among igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks by referring to
their properties and methods of formation (the rock cycle).
4b) Identify common rock-forming minerals (including quartz, calcite, feldspar, mica,
and hornblende) and ore minerals by using a table of diagnostic properties.
Waves, wind, water, and ice shape and reshape Earth's land surface. As a basis for
understanding this concept:
5a) Some changes in the earth are due to slow processes, such as erosion, and some
are due to rapid processes, such as landslides, volcanic eruptions, and earthquakes.
5b) Natural processes, including freezing and thawing and the growth of
roots, cause rocks to break down into smaller pieces.
5c) Moving water erodes landforms, reshaping the land by taking it away from some
places and depositing it as pebbles, sand, silt, and mud in other places (weathering,
transport, and deposition).
4TH GRADE SCIENCE
AT-A-GLANCE
Ecosystems
Rocks &
Minerals
Weathering
& Erosion
Electricity &
Magnetism
Amy Edmundson & Maureen Allen
Notes:
A compass is a device that contains a
magnetized needle that moves freely and is
used to detect a magnet or magnetic field.
The north end of the compass needle seeks
(points towards) the Earth’s magnetic north
pole. If a compass is near a magnet or
magnetic field, it will point in that direction.
An electromagnet is a device that turns an iron nail or bolt
into a magnet by wrapping an insulated wire that has an
electric current running through it around the nail or bolt.
The electric current running through the wire causes it to
become a “temporary magnet” with a North and South
Pole because the magnetic field causes the atoms in the
bolt to line up in a North/South direction, just like a real
magnet. It can be turned on and off.
Electric motors, door bells, speakers, and earphones are all
examples of electromagnets.
What happens when you increase the number of winds /coils
around a bolt in an electromagnet?
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
1
PS 1b, 1c, 1d
14
LIFE SCIENCE
MAGNETS
Ecosystems have living (biotic) and non-living (abiotic) components.
Magnets have two poles (north and south). Like poles
repel each other and unlike poles attract each other.
ATTRACT
REPEL
In any environment, some plants and animals
can survive WELL….can survive LESS WELL….or DON’T survive at all!
Plants depend on animals for POLLINATION and SEED DISPERSAL.
A magnetic field is the space in which the
force of a magnet can act. Iron filings can
show the magnetic field around a bar
magnet.
The filings are closer together at the poles
of the magnet because the magnetic force is
stronger. A magnet can attract any iron,
cobalt, or nickel object that comes within its
magnetic field.
Earth’s Magnetic Field - The Earth’s center
is made up mostly of molten iron. As the
Earth rotates, the iron particles line up,
producing a magnetic field. The Earth
behaves like a huge bar magnet with two
magnetic poles.
PS 1b, 1f
13
Animals depend on plants for FOOD AND SHELTER.
Most microorganisms do NOT cause disease and many are beneficial (helpful).
Bacteria is a microorganism. While
some types of bacteria cause illness,
others can be found in food such as
yogurt, sour cream, and cheese.
LS 3a, 3b, 3c, 3d
Plankton are microorganisms that
live in water and produce food that
is the beginning of many ocean food
chains.
2
Electrical Energy Converts to
A producer is an organism that can produce its own food.
HEAT
LIGHT
MOTION
A consumer is an organism that gets its energy by eating
plants or other organisms.
An herbivore is a
consumer that only
eats plants.
A carnivore is a consumer
that eats only animals.
An omnivore
is a consumer
that eats both
plants and
animals.
A series circuit consists of two or more light bulbs with a battery
in a single path. Any break in the circuit can stop the flow of the
electricity and none of the components will work.
If one light goes out, they all go out.
A decomposer is an organism that breaks down dead
organic matter into simple chemical compounds, thereby
returning nutrients to the environment. Examples: worms,
mold, fungi, bacteria.
A food chain shows the path of food energy in an ecosystem from
plants to animals.
A parallel circuit has more than one pathway that conducts the
electrical current each having their own components and path back to
the battery. If there is a break in any pathway, the electricity will go
through another pathway.
If one light goes out, the rest stay lit.
What happens when you take out one bulb in a:
series circuit? Why? ___________________________________
____________________________________________________
Name two animals that are herbivores ______________________
LS 2a, 2b, 2c
3
parallel circuit? Why?__________________________________
____________________________________________________
PS 1a, 1g
12
STATIC ELECTRICITY
Static electricity occurs when a charge builds up
on an object or material. An object gains or loses
negative electrical charges (electrons).
A food web is formed when two or more food
chains have the same organism in common.
Electrically charged objects attract or repel each other.
Like Charges Repel
Objects with like charges repel each other when brought close together.
The balloons have more positive (+) charges, therefore they have the
“same” charge and repel each other.
Unlike Charges Attract
Objects with unlike charges attract each other when brought close together.
The balloon has more negative (-) charges and the sock has more
positive (+) charges, therefore they attract each other.
What happens to the balloons after the charges are
“balanced?”
___________________________________________
___________________________________________
PS1e
11
Circle the secondary consumers and put a box around the
producers in the food chain.
LS 2a, 2b, 2c
4
THE ROCK CYCLE
WEATHERING & EROSION
Any type of rock can change into any other type of rock.
The rock cycle shows the processes that change rocks.
Weathering is the breaking and cracking of earth
materials and erosion is the movement and deposition
of those materials.
Weathering produces boulders, cobbles, sand, silt, and
clay. Erosion transports and deposits these earth
materials from one place to another.
Color each numbered rock face as it becomes each type of rock in the
rock cycle.
(1-3) Melted rock (magma) may cool and form Igneous Rocks
underground, such as granite, or erupt through a crack in the Earth’s
crust as a volcano.
(4-5) Rocks on the surface may be weathered and eroded by water,
wind, waves, and ice, into smaller rocks or sediments and
transported and deposited in layers on the earth’s crust.
What is weathering? _______________________________
__________________________________________________
What is erosion? ___________________________________
__________________________________________________
ES 5c
5
(6-7) Over time, lithification (cementing sediments together) forms
Sedimentary Rocks that become buried deep in the crust.
(8) Heat and pressure from the mantle can cause any type of rock to
change, re-arrange its atoms, and re-crystallize into hard, dense,
Metamorphic Rocks.
ES 4a
10
Slow Processes
Igneous, Sedimentary, and Metamorphic Rocks
Granite
Sandstone
Gneiss
Some changes in the earth are due to slow processes
such as:
Igneous rocks are formed above
and below the earth’s surface.
Magma, which is melted rock
material, can cool below the
earth’s surface or erupt through
volcanoes and then cool on the
earth’s surface.
Sedimentary rocks are formed
at or near the earth’s surface and
are weathered and broken apart
(eroded) by wind, rain, or ice
and deposited as sediments in
rivers, lakes, and oceans. Over
time the sediments are cemented
together through a chemical
process called “lithification.”
Plant Growth
Wind Erosion
Wave Action
Glacier Movement
Ice Wedging
Flowing Water
Rapid Processes
Some changes in the earth are due to rapid processes
such as:
Metamorphic rocks are buried
deep in the earth’s crust and
are heated up, but not melted,
from the heat and pressure in
the mantel. Once heated, the
rocks re-organize their atoms,
cool, and re-crystallize into
hard, dense, rocks.
Landslides
ES 4a
Chemical
Weathering
9
ES 5a, 5b
Earthquakes
Volcanoes
6
MINERALS
Geologists describe and identify minerals according to their
properties such as hardness, cleavage, color, and streak.
Cleavage is the tendency for some minerals to split
easily along flat surfaces when they are broken apart.
Smokey
Quartz
The color of a mineral cannot always be used to
identify it because impurities from the
surrounding area can be mixed with mineral
Amethyst when it is forming and can turn the mineral
Quartz
different colors.
The luster of a mineral describes the way the surface of
a mineral reflects light. Metallic minerals reflect light
and nonmetallic materials do not reflect light.
The streak of the mineral is the color of powder left
behind when the mineral is scratched onto another
mineral or on a piece of unglazed tile.
Hardness is a
measure of how
easily a mineral
may scratch or be
scratched by
another mineral.
ES 4b
7
What mineral am I?
1) I am shiny and yellow and I have a greenish black streak.
Who am I? _________________________
2) I am silver-gray, metallic or nonmetallic. I have a reddish
brown streak. Who am I? _________________________
3) I am a big flake! I can be silver-white but I’m not shiny & I
scratch easily. Who am I? _________________________
4) I’m nonmetallic, have a white streak, and I bubble when
vinegar is placed on me.
Who am I? _________________________
ES 4b
8