🔬 6th grade Science: how to help at home

What each unit covers

1. 🥣Particles & Mixtures

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

2. 🧪The Periodic Table

   Groups and periods, metals, non-metals and metalloids, alkali metals, halogens and noble gases, and how valence electrons and shells explain the patterns.

3. 🛟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.

4. ⚗️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.

5. 🛷Gravity & Friction

   Working out net force, telling balanced from unbalanced forces, mass versus weight on the Moon and other planets, and when friction helps or causes problems.

6. 🚀Newton's Laws

   Inertia (1st law), force = mass × acceleration (2nd law) and action–reaction pairs (3rd law), with everyday examples and a few simple calculations.

7. 🎢Kinetic & Potential Energy

   Practices how kinetic energy depends on mass and speed, how potential energy changes with position, and how energy transfers change an object's motion.

8. 🔋Stored Energy

   Practices the idea that objects can hold stored energy (chemical, elastic, height) and that it can be transferred to cause events such as motion, heat and light.

9. 🌲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.

10. 🌳Biodiversity

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

11. 🔬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.

12. 🌊Seasons & Tides

    Practices how the tilt of Earth's axis as it revolves around the Sun causes the seasons, and how the positions of the Earth, Sun and Moon cause daily tides and monthly spring and neap tides.

13. 🌎Managing Resources

    Practices why resource management matters for reducing energy poverty, malnutrition, and air and water pollution around the world, and how conservation, efficiency and technology help manage air, water, soil and energy resources.

14. 🌊Energy Transfers & Waves

    Practices how energy is conserved as it is transferred and transformed in systems such as circuits, food webs, roller coasters and photosynthesis, and how transverse and longitudinal waves carry energy.

15. 🌍Earth's Spheres & Layers

    Practices the four Earth systems (biosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere and geosphere) and their parts, and the layers of Earth: crust, mantle, outer core and inner core.

16. 🦠Kinds of Organisms

    Practices comparing prokaryotic and eukaryotic, unicellular and multicellular, and autotrophic and heterotrophic organisms, and how variation within a population can help or hurt survival when the environment changes.

17. 🪨The Rock Cycle

    Practices how igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic rocks form and change into one another through melting, cooling, weathering, compaction, heat and pressure, with Texas examples such as the pink granite of Enchanted Rock and the limestone of the Hill Country.