🔬 5th grade Science

Units

1. Unit 1

   🧪Solutions & Mixtures

   Solutions versus mechanical mixtures, solutes and solvents, what affects dissolving, and ways to separate mixtures (filtering, evaporation, magnets, chromatography).

   Learning standard: 5-PS1-3; 5-PS1-4 · identifying materials by their properties and testing whether mixing makes new substances

2. Unit 2

   🧊Solid, Liquid, Gas

   Matter as anything with mass and volume, how particles are arranged in solids, liquids and gases, and why materials are chosen for their properties.

   Learning standard: 5-PS1-1 · matter made of particles too small to see

3. Unit 3

   ♨️Changes of State

   Melting, freezing, evaporation and condensation at home and outdoors, and how matter absorbs or releases thermal energy when it changes state.

   Learning standard: 5-PS1-1; 5-PS1-2 · heating and cooling change the state of matter, not the amount

4. Unit 4

   🧪Physical or Chemical?

   Telling a physical change from a chemical change, spotting the signs of a new substance, and how making and throwing away everyday products affects the environment.

   Learning standard: 5-PS1-4 · mixing substances that react and make new substances

5. Unit 5

   ⚖️Measuring Matter

   Measuring mass (grams, kilograms) and volume (milliliters, liters), comparing density, why gases compress and solids do not, and how the particle model explains it.

   Learning standard: 5-PS1-2; 5-PS1-3 · measuring mass and volume and identifying materials by their properties

6. Unit 6

   ⛈️Weather and the Water Cycle

   How the Sun, air, water and land interact to cause daily weather, the water cycle, tools for measuring weather, and why long-term forecasting is hard.

   Learning standard: 5-ESS2-1 · how the air, water and land interact to make weather

7. Unit 7

   🌻Energy from the Sun

   Practices how plants get the materials they need for growth mostly from air and water, and how the energy in animals' food was once energy from the sun.

   Learning standard: 5-PS3-1; 5-LS1-1 · food energy comes from the sun, and plants grow mainly from air and water

8. Unit 8

   📐Engineering Challenges

   Practices the engineering design process: defining a problem with criteria and constraints, comparing possible solutions, and planning fair tests that control variables and find failure points.

   Learning standard: 3-5-ETS1-1; 3-5-ETS1-2; 3-5-ETS1-3 · defining a design problem with criteria and constraints, comparing solutions, and running fair tests

9. Unit 9

   🍎Gravity Pulls Down

   Practices explaining that Earth's gravitational force on objects is directed down, toward Earth's center, wherever you are on the planet.

   Learning standard: 5-PS2-1 · Earth's gravitational force on objects is directed down

10. Unit 10

    🐟Food Webs & Ecosystems

    Practices how matter moves among producers, consumers, decomposers and the environment in a food web, with examples from the Hudson River, the Great Lakes and Adirondack forests.

    Learning standard: 5-LS2-1 · the movement of matter among plants, animals, decomposers and the environment

11. Unit 11

    🌟Sun, Stars & Shadows

    Practices why the sun looks brighter than other stars (it is much closer), and the daily and seasonal patterns of shadows, day length and the stars we see, using New York's long summer days and short winter days.

    Learning standard: 5-ESS1-1; 5-ESS1-2 · the sun's brightness and distance, and patterns of shadows, day and night, and stars in the sky

12. Unit 12

    💧Earth's Systems & Water

    Practices how Earth's land, water, air and living things interact, how much of Earth's water is salty, fresh or frozen, and how communities protect Earth's resources, using New York's Great Lakes, Hudson River and Catskill reservoirs as examples.

    Learning standard: 5-ESS2-1; 5-ESS2-2; 5-ESS3-1 · Earth's systems interact, where Earth's water is, and how communities protect Earth's resources