🔬 7th grade Science: how to help at home

What each unit covers

1. 🔬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.

2. 🔬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.

3. 🔬Cells, Tissues & Organs

   Why cells are the basic unit of life, how plant and animal cells differ, how materials move into and out of cells, and how cells form tissues, organs and systems. Includes working out microscope magnification.

4. 🌿Photosynthesis & Respiration

   The reactants, products and location of photosynthesis and cellular respiration, why they are complementary, and how they link plants, animals and the carbon cycle.

5. 🧫Cells from Cells

   How cells copy their DNA and divide by mitosis, the stages in order, why cells divide for growth and healing, and what can go wrong when cell growth isn't controlled.

6. 🧠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.

7. 🫀Heart, Bones & Muscles

   The heart and blood vessels, bones, joints, muscles and tendons, how body systems work together, and heart-rate data.

8. 🦊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.

9. ♻️Cycles & Succession

   How water, carbon and nitrogen are cycled through ecosystems, why cycling supports sustainability, and the difference between primary and secondary succession.

10. 🌲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.

11. 🌳Biodiversity

    Why a variety of life makes species and communities more resilient, how species depend on each other, and why biodiversity matters to people.

12. 🧬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.

13. 🌿Asexual & Sexual Reproduction

    Practices comparing asexual reproduction (budding, runners, cuttings, splitting) and sexual reproduction (two parents) in plants and animals, how each affects variety in offspring, and why variety matters for a population over time.

14. 🧬Species & Hybrids

    Practices what a species is, what viable offspring are, and hybrids such as mules, ligers, grolar bears and hybrid crops.

15. 🦒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.

16. 🦎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.