7th grade Science
10 units matched to the Minnesota K-12 Academic Standards.
Focus areas
- Life science: cells, body systems, ecosystems, heredity and natural selection
- Science and engineering practices: arguing from evidence
- How science connects to people and communities in Minnesota and beyond
Units
Unit 1
Natural Selection
Variation, inherited versus acquired traits, adaptations, and how natural selection changes populations over generations, with fossils and other evidence. Includes reading data from a predator–prey model.
Benchmark: 7L.2.2.1.1; 7L.3.2.1.4 · how natural selection changes the traits in a population over time
Unit 2
Cells: Life's Building Blocks
Practices evidence that living things are made of cells, the parts of plant and animal cells and their jobs, and how the cell works as a system.
Benchmark: 7L.1.2.1.1; 7L.3.1.1.1 · evidence that living things are made of cells, and what the parts of a cell do
Unit 3
Cells & Life Processes
The cell theory, what organelles do in plant and animal cells, how photosynthesis and respiration are connected, osmosis, and how cells form tissues, organs and organ systems.
Benchmark: 7L.1.2.1.1; 7L.3.1.1.1 · cells, microscopes and the parts of a cell
Unit 4
Body Systems
How the nervous and endocrine (hormone) systems send messages, how the excretory system removes waste, and the basic organs of the reproductive system, all at a simple organ-and-job level.
Benchmark: 7L.4.1.1.1 · how the body is a system of interacting subsystems made of groups of cells
Unit 5
How Plants Work
The parts of seed plants and what they do, photosynthesis, gas exchange, transpiration and pollination, and how plant structures suit where a plant grows.
Benchmark: 7L.3.2.1.2; 7L.3.2.1.1 · photosynthesis, and how environment and genes affect how plants grow
Unit 6
Ecosystems
Biotic and abiotic parts of an ecosystem, how they interact, and the limiting factors and carrying capacity that decide how many organisms an ecosystem can support.
Benchmark: 7L.2.1.1.1; 7L.4.1.2.1 · how resources affect populations, and how changes to an ecosystem affect them
Unit 7
Food Chains & Energy
Producers, consumers and decomposers, food chains and webs, how energy shrinks as it passes up a chain (about 10% each step), and what happens when part of a chain changes.
Benchmark: 7L.3.1.1.3 · the cycling of matter and flow of energy in an ecosystem
Unit 8
Cycles & Succession
How water, carbon and nitrogen are cycled through ecosystems, why cycling supports sustainability, and the difference between primary and secondary succession.
Benchmark: 7L.4.1.2.1; 7L.4.1.2.2 · how ecosystems change over time, and ways to protect biodiversity
Unit 9
Genes & Heredity
Practices how genes on chromosomes code for proteins that shape traits, how mutations can be harmful, helpful or neutral, and how sexual and asexual reproduction differ in passing on genes.
Benchmark: 7L.3.1.1.4 · why asexual reproduction gives identical offspring and sexual reproduction gives variation
Unit 10
Natural Selection
Practices how variation in traits leads some individuals to survive and reproduce more, how populations change over generations, and how artificial selection works.
Benchmark: 7L.2.1.1.2; 7L.3.2.1.3 · the fossil record, body structures and the evidence for how species change
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