What does a student learn in StateIdaho,GradeGrade 12,SubjectScience?

Students examine how atoms bond and arrange themselves to form different materials. The structure of those arrangements explains why some materials conduct electricity, bend without breaking, or dissolve in water.

Students draw or diagram molecules to show how atoms bond together. This applies to simple substances like water as well as larger repeating structures like crystals or metals.

The periodic table is a map for predicting how elements behave. Students use patterns in how electrons are arranged in an atom's outer shell to predict whether an element will react easily, hold a charge, or bond with other elements.

Students design and run an experiment to compare how substances behave physically, then use those observations to reason about how strongly their atoms or molecules pull on each other.

Nuclear fission splits a large atom into smaller ones; fusion merges small atoms into a larger one. Students model both processes and explain why each releases a burst of energy, along with what happens during radioactive decay.

Students explain how the arrangement of atoms and molecules inside a material determines what that material can do. This shows up in real products: why a bike helmet absorbs impact, why a waterproof jacket sheds rain, or why a phone screen resists scratches.

Students identify what changes and what stays the same when atoms rearrange into new substances. They trace how the same atoms that enter a reaction show up in the products, just in different combinations.

Students explain why two substances react the way they do by looking at where electrons sit on the outer edge of each atom and what patterns the periodic table reveals about those atoms.

Students trace where energy goes in a chemical reaction by comparing the energy needed to break old bonds with the energy released when new bonds form. If more energy is released than absorbed, the reaction gives off heat. If more is absorbed, it takes heat in.

Changing the heat or the amount of a substance speeds up or slows down a chemical reaction. Students explain why, using real evidence from experiments.

In a chemical reaction, no atoms disappear and no new ones appear. Students use math, such as counting atoms on each side of a chemical equation, to show that the total mass before and after the reaction stays the same.

Students trace how energy moves and changes form during chemical reactions, such as why some reactions release heat and others absorb it.

Light and other radiation can act like a wave (spreading out, bending) or like a stream of tiny particles, depending on how you measure it. Students learn to ask precise questions about which model explains a given situation.

Students build a math model to track where energy goes in a system. If they know how much energy one part gains or loses, they can calculate what happened to every other part.

Students learn that the heat or motion you can see and measure in everyday objects comes from two sources: how fast the tiny particles inside are moving and how far apart those particles are from each other.

Students design and build a device that converts one form of energy into another, such as turning motion into electricity or heat into light, then test and improve it until it works within the given limits.

Students mix two substances at different temperatures and measure how heat moves between them until both reach the same temperature. The experiment shows why heat always flows from warmer to cooler, never the other way on its own.

Students study why things move, speed up, slow down, or stay still. They learn how forces like gravity and friction act on objects and how balanced or unbalanced forces change an object's motion.

Students look at data from moving objects to show how force, mass, and acceleration are connected. A heavier object needs more push to speed up at the same rate as a lighter one, and Newton's second law puts that relationship into a single equation.

Students use math to show that when two objects collide or push apart, the total momentum of the system stays the same, as long as no outside force acts on it. Think of billiard balls or a skater pushing off a wall.

Students design and test a device that cushions an object during a crash, then improve it based on what the data shows. The goal is to reduce the force the object feels on impact.

Students use equations to calculate the pulling force gravity creates between two masses and the pushing or pulling force electric charges create between two objects. Both forces grow stronger as objects get closer or as mass and charge increase.

Students set up circuits and moving magnets to show that electricity creates magnetism and that a moving magnet can push electricity through a wire. This is the science behind every electric motor and generator.

Students explain why the arrangement of atoms and molecules in a material determines how it behaves. Think of why a steel cable holds a bridge but a rubber band stretches: the difference comes down to structure at a scale too small to see.

Students study how energy moves, changes form, and is conserved in physical systems. They work with examples like heat transfer, kinetic and potential energy, and how energy flows through circuits or collisions.

Students build a working model (usually a formula or spreadsheet) to figure out how much energy one part of a system gained or lost, based on what happened to every other part and what flowed in or out.

Students learn that the total energy of any object or system adds up to two things: how fast its particles are moving and how they are arranged relative to each other. A bouncing ball, a stretched spring, a warm gas, all follow the same accounting.

Students design and build a real device that turns one form of energy into another, like converting motion into electricity or heat into light, then test and improve it until it works within the given limits.

Students mix two substances at different temperatures and measure what happens. The heat always moves from the warmer substance to the cooler one until both reach the same temperature, showing that energy spreads out on its own but never concentrates itself back.

Students draw or diagram two objects, such as magnets or charged particles, pulling toward or pushing away from each other. The goal is to show how the invisible field between them creates force and shifts energy from one object to the other.

Students learn how waves carry energy through matter and space without moving the matter itself. They study how waves reflect, refract, and transfer energy, from sound moving through air to light bending through glass.

Students use math to show how a wave's speed, frequency, and wavelength are connected. When a wave moves through water, air, or glass, changing one of those values changes the others in a predictable way.

Students look at why music, photos, and other data are stored and sent as digital signals rather than analog ones. They weigh the real trade-offs: sound quality, file size, and how well the signal holds up over distance.

Light can behave like a wave or like a tiny particle, depending on the situation. Students study the evidence for both models and decide which one better explains what's happening in a given experiment.

Students look at real scientific sources and judge whether the claims hold up: does the evidence actually show that different types of electromagnetic waves (radio, visible light, X-rays) cause different effects when materials absorb them?

Students explain how real devices like cell phones, radios, and solar panels use wave behavior to send, receive, or store information and energy. The focus is on connecting the physics of waves to technology students already use.

Students study how living things are built and how they work, from the molecules inside a single cell up to the systems that keep an entire organism alive.

DNA holds the instructions for building proteins. Students learn how a cell reads those instructions, step by step, and how the proteins it builds run nearly every function in the body, from digesting food to carrying oxygen in the blood.

Living things are organized in layers, from cells to tissues to organs to full body systems. Students build or use a model to show how each layer depends on the ones around it to keep the organism alive.

Students design and run an experiment to show how the body keeps conditions stable, like how sweating cools you down or how blood sugar returns to normal after a meal.

Students learn how a single cell divides and specializes to build a full human body. They use diagrams or models to show how mitosis copies cells and how those copies become skin, muscle, nerve, or other tissue.

Students explain how plants capture sunlight and convert it into sugar, using a diagram or model to show where the energy comes from and where it ends up.

Sugar molecules supply the carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen that cells rearrange, with a few added elements, to build amino acids and other large molecules the body needs. Students explain how that process works using real evidence.

Cellular respiration is how cells break down food and oxygen to release usable energy. Students model the chemical bond-breaking and bond-forming steps that explain why eating fuels everything from muscle movement to brain activity.

Students study how living things depend on each other and their environment to survive. They trace how energy moves through food webs and what happens when something in an ecosystem changes.

Students use graphs or equations to explain why a habitat can only support so many of a given species. They look at factors like food supply and space to show how those limits change at local and larger scales.

Students use data and graphs to explain how living things (like predators or plants) and non-living conditions (like temperature or rainfall) shape the variety of species found in an ecosystem, from a single pond to an entire region.

Students trace how energy moves up a food chain from plants to predators, and how matter like carbon and nitrogen cycles back through the ecosystem. They use graphs or equations to back up what they find.

Plants pull carbon out of the air during photosynthesis. Students build a model showing how that carbon moves through living things, soil, water, and the atmosphere as organisms grow, eat, and break down.

When conditions in an ecosystem shift, such as a drought or a new species arriving, the whole system can reorganize into something different. Students evaluate real evidence to decide whether that kind of change is likely and why.

Students look at how fishing, farming, land use, or other human activities affect local species and ecosystems, then evaluate or redesign those practices to reduce harm and keep the ecosystem functioning.

Working in groups helps some animals survive and raise more offspring. Students look at real evidence to figure out when group behavior actually improves an animal's chances, and when it doesn't.

Students study how traits pass from parents to offspring and why siblings can look different from each other. The focus is on genes, DNA, and the natural variation that shows up across generations.

DNA holds the instructions that determine a person's traits, and those instructions are packaged into chromosomes passed from parents to children. Students ask questions to understand how that process works and why offspring resemble, but don't perfectly copy, their parents.

Students learn that genetic variation comes from three sources: the shuffling of genes during meiosis, copying errors in DNA, and mutations triggered by environmental exposure. They practice building an evidence-based argument for why these changes can be passed to the next generation.

Students use probability and basic statistics to explain why a trait like eye color or blood type shows up at different rates across a population. The math helps predict how often a trait appears, not just whether it can.

Students study why living things look and behave so differently from one another, and how those differences trace back to inherited traits that helped ancestors survive. The focus is on how populations change over generations through natural selection.

Students explain how fossils, DNA comparisons, and anatomical similarities across species all point to the same conclusion: living things share common ancestors and have changed over time.

Students explain why populations change over time by connecting four ideas: species can multiply fast, offspring inherit genetic differences, resources run short, and the individuals best suited to their environment tend to survive and have more offspring.

Students use probability and basic statistics to explain why a helpful inherited trait, like disease resistance or better camouflage, spreads through a population over generations while organisms without it become less common.

Students explain, using real examples from nature, how traits that help an organism survive get passed on more often until the whole population shifts. Over generations, that process reshapes what a species looks like and how it behaves.

When the environment shifts, some traits help a species survive and others don't. Students examine models to see how genetic drift, gene flow, mutation, and natural selection can push a population to evolve, split into a new species, or die out entirely.

Students study how Earth fits into the broader universe, from the solar system to distant galaxies. They learn how gravity, light, and time shape what we see in the sky and how scientists piece together the history of the cosmos.

Students trace the Sun's full life story, from birth to eventual burnout, and explain how nuclear fusion in the core produces the energy that travels to Earth as light and heat.

Scientists use light from distant galaxies and the way those galaxies are moving apart to explain how the universe began with a single explosive expansion. Students build that explanation using real astronomical evidence.

Stars are giant element factories. Students explain how stars fuse lighter elements into heavier ones as they age, and how those elements scatter into space when a star dies, eventually forming planets, rocks, and living things.

Students use math to predict where planets, moons, and other objects will be in their orbits. Think calculating when a comet returns or where Mars will sit in the sky six months from now.

Continents and ocean floors move over millions of years, and the rocks they leave behind record that history. Students use that fossil and rock evidence to explain why rocks in different places formed at different times.

Students use evidence from the oldest rocks, meteorites, and other planetary surfaces to piece together how Earth formed and what its earliest history looked like.

Students study how Earth's major systems (the atmosphere, oceans, land, and living things) interact and shape each other over time, from weather patterns to the slow movement of tectonic plates.

Students map how slow-moving processes deep inside Earth and faster ones at the surface, working over millions of years or just decades, build features like mountain ranges, ocean trenches, and continents.

One change on Earth's surface sets off a chain reaction. Students look at real data to show how something like melting ice raises temperatures, which speeds more melting, which shifts weather patterns across the planet.

Students build a diagram or model showing how heat from Earth's core drives slow loops of molten rock through the mantle, the same process that moves tectonic plates and recycles material through Earth's layers.

Students use diagrams or models to explain why some parts of Earth get more heat than others, and how those differences drive long-term patterns in temperature, rainfall, and wind across the planet.

Students investigate how water shapes the planet, looking at how it physically breaks apart rocks and chemically dissolves minerals to explain erosion, weathering, and other changes to Earth's surface.

Students trace how carbon moves through the ocean, air, rocks, and living things, then build a model (a diagram or chart) that shows how those pathways connect.

Students build a case, using rock layers, fossils, and atmospheric data, for how living things and Earth itself have shaped each other over billions of years. Life changed the air; shifting land and climate changed life.

Students examine how people use Earth's resources and how those choices affect the environment. The focus is on real tradeoffs: energy, land, water, and what happens when demand outpaces what the planet can sustain.

Students explain how natural resources, natural hazards, and climate shape where and how people live, using real evidence to back their reasoning.

Students compare different plans for getting energy or minerals out of the ground, weighing what each option costs against what it delivers. The goal is to judge which approach makes the most practical sense.

Students map how decisions about water, land, and energy use ripple outward to affect wildlife variety and whether communities can keep meeting their own needs long term.

Students look at real proposals for handling problems like flooding, drought, or pollution and judge whether the solution actually helps or makes things worse. Then they suggest ways to improve it.

Students study real temperature, sea level, and storm data alongside computer climate models to explain how a shifting climate reshapes weather patterns, coastlines, and ecosystems across the planet and in specific regions.

Students explain how human actions, such as burning fuel or clearing land, change the way air, water, soil, and living things interact with each other.