New Jersey Science — Grade 6
Comprehensive Course Syllabus
Course Overview
Our New Jersey Grade 6 Science course is designed around the New Jersey Student Learning Standards for Science (NJSLS-S) and the New Jersey Grades 6–8 Model Curriculum Framework.
New Jersey organizes science standards for Grades 6–8 as a middle-school band, rather than prescribing completely separate standards for each grade. The state’s model curriculum places the following major units in Grade 6: Light and Matter, Thermal Energy, Weather/Climate/Water Cycling, Plate Tectonics and Rock Cycling, Natural Hazards, and Cells and Systems. Scientific investigation, engineering design, modeling, evidence-based reasoning, and data analysis are integrated throughout the course.
Scientific Investigation & Engineering Practices
Scientific Questions
Students learn to develop questions about observable phenomena and identify questions that can be investigated using scientific methods.
Planning Investigations
Students plan investigations by identifying variables, selecting appropriate tools, collecting evidence, and considering how results can be evaluated.
Data Collection & Analysis
Students collect, organize, graph, and analyze scientific data to identify patterns and relationships.
Scientific Models
Students create, use, test, and revise models to represent systems, processes, and scientific ideas.
Evidence-Based Explanations
Students use evidence and scientific reasoning to construct explanations and support claims.
Light & Matter
Properties of Light
Students investigate light as a form of energy and explore how light behaves when it interacts with different materials.
Light & Materials
Students investigate what happens when light encounters transparent, translucent, and opaque materials.
Reflection
Students explore how light reflects from surfaces and use models to represent reflection.
Absorption
Students investigate how materials absorb light and how absorbed light can affect matter and energy transfer.
Transmission
Students explore how light travels through different materials and why some materials allow more light to pass through than others.
Thermal Energy
Thermal Energy
Students develop an understanding of thermal energy and how it relates to the motion of particles in matter.
Temperature
Students distinguish temperature from thermal energy and use measurements to investigate changes in thermal conditions.
Particle Motion
Students use models to explain how particles move differently when thermal energy is added or removed.
Heating & Cooling
Students investigate how adding or removing thermal energy changes the temperature and state of matter.
Transfer of Thermal Energy
Students explore how thermal energy moves between objects or systems due to temperature differences.
Weather, Climate & Water Cycling
Weather Patterns
Students collect and analyze data about temperature, precipitation, wind, air pressure, and other weather conditions.
Air Masses
Students investigate how different air masses interact and how their movement contributes to changes in weather.
Water Cycle
Students model evaporation, condensation, precipitation, runoff, infiltration, and other processes involved in Earth’s water cycle.
Energy & the Water Cycle
Students investigate how energy from the Sun drives water movement through Earth’s systems.
Atmospheric Circulation
Students explore how unequal heating of Earth’s surface contributes to patterns of atmospheric movement.
Plate Tectonics & Rock Cycling
Earth’s Internal Structure
Students explore Earth’s layers and investigate how internal processes influence the planet’s surface.
Plate Tectonics
Students learn how Earth’s lithospheric plates move and interact with one another.
Evidence for Plate Movement
Students analyze fossils, rocks, continental shapes, and seafloor features as evidence of past plate movement.
Earth’s Surface Changes
Students investigate how geological processes gradually and rapidly change Earth’s surface.
Rock Cycle
Students explore how rocks form, change, break down, and become new types of rocks over geological time.
Natural Hazards
Types of Natural Hazards
Students study hazards such as earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, severe storms, landslides, wildfires, and other natural events.
Causes of Natural Hazards
Students investigate the geological, atmospheric, and environmental processes responsible for different hazards.
Hazard Data
Students analyze historical records, maps, graphs, models, and other data to identify patterns associated with natural hazards.
Forecasting Hazards
Students explore how scientists use observations, measurements, models, and historical information to forecast potential hazards.
Reducing Risk
Students investigate ways communities can prepare for natural hazards and reduce damage to people, infrastructure, and the environment.
Cells & Living Systems
What Are Cells?
Students investigate evidence that living organisms are made of one or more cells.
Cell Structure
Students identify major cell structures and develop models showing how different parts contribute to cell function.
Plant & Animal Cells
Students compare plant and animal cells and identify similarities and differences in their structures.
Specialized Cells
Students explore how different types of cells have structures suited to particular functions.
Cells Working Together
Students investigate how groups of cells work together to perform specialized functions in multicellular organisms.
Systems, Interactions & Homeostasis
Biological Systems
Students use systems thinking to understand how parts of living organisms interact to maintain overall function.
Structure & Function
Students explain how the structure of cells, tissues, organs, and systems contributes to their functions.
Interactions Between Systems
Students investigate how different body systems depend on and communicate with one another.
Feedback & Regulation
Students develop an introductory understanding of how living systems regulate internal conditions.
Modeling Biological Systems
Students create and revise models showing how components of living systems interact.
Matter, Energy & Scientific Connections
Matter in Scientific Systems
Students use particle models to explain how matter behaves and changes under different conditions.
Energy Transfer
Students investigate how energy moves between objects, materials, organisms, and Earth systems.
Matter & Energy in Living Systems
Students explore how living systems obtain and use matter and energy to maintain their functions.
Scientific Systems Thinking
Students identify components of systems and examine how interactions between components produce observable outcomes.
Cross-Disciplinary Science
Students connect concepts from physical science, life science, Earth science, mathematics, and engineering to solve scientific problems.
Data, Graphs & Scientific Reasoning
Scientific Data
Students collect quantitative and qualitative data during investigations and organize it in meaningful ways.
Graphing Scientific Data
Students create and interpret tables, line graphs, bar graphs, diagrams, and other scientific representations.
Identifying Patterns
Students use data to identify trends, relationships, changes, similarities, and differences.
Evidence & Claims
Students distinguish observations from explanations and support scientific claims with relevant evidence.
Scientific Arguments
Students construct arguments based on evidence and explain why the evidence supports their conclusions.
Technology, Engineering & Problem Solving
Engineering Problems
Students identify constraints, criteria, and requirements when defining real-world engineering problems.
Design Solutions
Students develop multiple possible solutions and compare them using scientific evidence and design criteria.
Prototype Development
Students create models or prototypes and test their performance under appropriate conditions.
Testing & Refinement
Students analyze test results and modify designs to improve performance.
Technology & Society
Students explore how scientific knowledge and engineering solutions affect people, communities, and the environment.
Science Research & STEM Projects
Science Research
Students investigate a scientific question using appropriate books, articles, digital resources, data, and other reliable sources.
Science Communication
Students communicate scientific findings through reports, diagrams, posters, presentations, models, and digital media.
Phenomena-Based Investigation
Students investigate real-world phenomena and develop explanations based on observations, models, and evidence.
STEM Challenge
Students combine science, mathematics, technology, and engineering concepts to solve a practical problem.
Science Project
Students plan and complete an extended investigation or design project and communicate their results to an audience.
Teaching Methodology
Our Grade 6 Science classes focus on phenomena-based learning, scientific investigation, modeling, evidence-based reasoning, physical science, Earth and space science, life science, and engineering design. Students learn through:
Learning Outcomes
By the end of Grade 6, students will be able to:
Assessment & Progress Tracking
Student progress is evaluated through: