🔬 7th grade Science: how to help at home

What each unit covers

1. ⚛️Atoms & Elements

   Elements versus compounds and mixtures, chemical symbols (H, O, Na, Cl, Fe, Au…), counting atoms in formulas like H₂O and C₆H₁₂O₆, metals and non-metals, and the basics of the periodic table.

2. 💡Circuits & Static

   Complete circuits, series versus parallel wiring, conductors and insulators, adding cell voltages, and static electricity (like and opposite charges, lightning).

3. 🌲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.

4. 🦊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.

5. ♻️Cycles & Succession

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

6. 🌱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.

7. 🥣Particles & Mixtures

   The particle theory of matter, the states of matter, pure substances versus mixtures, and homogeneous versus heterogeneous mixtures.

8. 🛟Density & Buoyancy

   Calculating density from mass and volume, explaining why solids, liquids and gases differ in density using the particle theory, and predicting whether objects float or sink in different fluids.

9. ⚗️Chemical Reactions

   Practices signs of chemical reactions, how properties change when new substances form, conservation of mass, and devices that release or absorb thermal energy through reactions.

10. 🏔️Earth's Changing Surface

    Practices the rock cycle, how surface processes change land at different speeds and scales, and evidence that plates move, with examples from the glaciers that shaped the Finger Lakes and Long Island and the old rock of the Adirondacks.

11. ⛏️Resources & Hazards

    Practices why minerals, fuels and groundwater are unevenly spread because of past geologic processes, how hazard data help forecast events like hurricanes and floods, and designing ways to reduce human impact, such as the salt beds under central New York and flood maps of its coast.

12. 🦅Protecting Biodiversity

    Practices evaluating solutions that maintain biodiversity and ecosystem services, such as restoring oyster reefs in New York Harbor, controlling zebra mussels in the Great Lakes and the bald eagle's return to New York.

13. 🧵Synthetic Materials

    Practices how synthetic materials such as plastics, nylon, glass and medicines are made from natural resources through chemical processes, and how they help and harm society, from safety vests and insulin to plastic waste and fertilizer runoff.

14. 🌍People & Earth's Resources

    Practices arguing from evidence how a growing human population and rising use of resources per person affect Earth's land, water, air and living things, and how using less per person can reduce that impact, with examples such as groundwater, fisheries and New York's returning forests.