In Grade 1, the study of science includes simple classroom and field investigations to help students develop the skills of asking questions, gathering information, making measurements using non-standard units, with tools such as a thermometer to extend their senses, constructing explanations, and drawing conclusions. Students also use computers and information technology tools to support their investigations. Students observe that heat from the Sun or friction, is an example of something that causes change. In addition, students identify basic needs of living things, explore ways that living things depend on each other, and separate living organisms and nonliving things into groups. Students identify parts that can be put together with other parts to do new things.
Science is a way of learning about the natural world.
Students should know how science has built a vast body of changing and increasing knowledge described by physical, mathematical, and conceptual models, and also should know that science may not answer all questions. A system is a collection of cycles, structures, and processes that interact. Students should understand a whole in terms of its components and how these components relate to each other and to the whole. All systems have basic properties that can be described in terms of space, time, energy, and matter. Change and constancy occur in systems and can be observed and measured as patterns.