In Grade K through Grade 8 Science, content is organized into recurring strands. The concepts within each grade level build on prior knowledge, prepare students for the next grade level, and establish a foundation for high school courses.

Kindergarten

Students build their knowledge of the natural world using their senses.
The students focus on observable properties and patterns of objects, including shape, color, texture, and material.

Students build their knowledge of the natural world using their senses.
Students focus on observable properties and patterns of objects, including larger and smaller, heavier and lighter, shape, color, and texture.
The students understand changes in materials caused by heating and cooling.

Students build upon their knowledge of the natural world using their senses.
The students focus on physical properties of matter and determine how observable properties can be changed through various processes.
Students use these processes to form new objects.

Students build upon the knowledge learned in Kindergarten-Grade 2 by investigating the physical properties of matter.
Students explore states of matter and observe that changes can occur to matter through heating and cooling.
The students explore using substances by combining them to create or modify objects based on their physical properties.

Students investigate matter's measurable properties, including mass, volume, states, temperature, magnetism, and relative density, to determine how it is classified, changed, and used.
Students compare and contrast a variety of mixtures, including solutions, and demonstrate that matter is conserved.

Students investigate matter expanding their understanding of properties learned in Grade 4 (mass, volume, states, temperature, magnetism, and relative density) to include solubility and the ability to conduct or insulate both thermal and electrical energy.
Students observe the combination of substances to make mixtures and develop an understanding of conservation of matter.
These concepts lead to the understanding of elements and compounds.
Students will build on this understanding in middle school when they learn to determine density and to identify evidence of chemical changes.

Students build upon their knowledge of properties of solids, liquids, and gases and further explore their molecular energies.
In Grade 6, students learn how elements are classified as metals, nonmetals, or metalloids based on their properties on the Periodic Table.
Students have previous experience with mixtures in Grade 5.
Grade 6 furthers their understanding by investigating the different types of mixtures.
Subsequent grades will learn about compounds.
In Grade 6, students compare the density of substances relative to fluids and identify evidence of chemical changes.

Students have prior experience with elements in Grade 6 and develop an understanding that compounds are also pure substances in Grade 7.
Students investigate the differences between elements and compounds through observations, descriptions of physical properties, and chemical reactions.
Students build upon their understanding of solutions by exploring aqueous solutions.

Students make connections between elements, compounds, and mixtures that were introduced in prior grade levels.
Students examine the properties of water, acids, and bases.
In addition, students understand the basic concept of conservation of mass using chemical equations.