National Science Education Standards and Benchmarks

Standards

These excerpts from the National Science Education Standards (NSES) relate to the study of energy in middle school.

Physical Science

As a result of activities in grades 5-8, all students should develop an understanding of:

Transfer of Energy

• Energy is a property of many substances and is associated with heat, light, electricity, mechanical motion, sound, nuclei, and the nature of a chemical. Energy is transferred in many ways.
• Heat moves in predictable ways, flowing from warmer objects to cooler ones, until both reach the same temperature.
• Light interacts with matter by transmission (including refraction), absorption, or scattering (including reflection). To see an object, light from that object--emitted by or scattered from it--must enter the eye.
• Electrical circuits provide a means of transferring electrical energy when heat, light, sound, and chemical changes are produced.
• In most chemical and nuclear reactions, energy is transferred into or out of a system. Heat, light, mechanical motion, or electricity might all be involved in such transfers.
• The sun is a major source of energy for changes on the earth's surface. The sun loses energy by emitting light. A tiny fraction of that light reaches the earth, transferring energy from the sun to the earth. The sun's energy arrives as light with a range of wavelengths, consisting of visible light, infrared, and ultraviolet radiation.

Benchmarks

For a practical and insightful look at what students should understand about energy transformations as they progress from grades K to 12, also visit the Energy Transformations section of the Benchmarks for Science Literacy. The commentary on grades 6-8 can be found at http://www.project2061.org/tools/benchol/ch4/ch4.htm#EnergyTransformations_6_8.

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Copyright March 2005 — The Ohio State University. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0424671. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.