Texas Grade 4 science standards

4.1(B) Use scientific practices to plan and conduct descriptive investigations and use engineering practices to design solutions to problems. Includes the animal-inspired sensor design task.

Lessons: Your Senses: How Does Your Body Know?

Practice: Your Senses: How Does Your Body Know? workbook

4.1(E) Collect observations and measurements as evidence (arm span, height and timed helicopter drops).

Lessons: Evidence Lab (How do you know a fact is true?, Why do scientists repeat their tests?)

Practice: Evidence Lab workbook · Build It, Launch It workbook · How Your Body Works workbook · Keep It Cool: Ice, Insulation and Staying Comfortable workbook · Winter Science: Ice, Snow and Staying Warm workbook · Think Like a Scientist: The Scientific Method workbook · Test the Claim: Science Facts, Myths and AI Answers workbook · Steppe Science: Staying Warm on the Kazakh Steppe workbook · Monsoon Science: Rain, Sun and the Nón Lá workbook

4.2(B) Analyze data by identifying any significant features, patterns, or sources of error. Students see that repeated drops never give the same time and pool class data.

Lessons: Evidence Lab (How do you know a fact is true?, Why do scientists repeat their tests?)

Practice: Evidence Lab workbook · Build It, Launch It workbook · How Your Body Works workbook · Keep It Cool: Ice, Insulation and Staying Comfortable workbook · Winter Science: Ice, Snow and Staying Warm workbook · Think Like a Scientist: The Scientific Method workbook · Test the Claim: Science Facts, Myths and AI Answers workbook · Steppe Science: Staying Warm on the Kazakh Steppe workbook · Monsoon Science: Rain, Sun and the Nón Lá workbook

4.2(D) Evaluate a design or object using criteria. Kids judge their egg protectors and planes against a simple pass-or-fail test, then improve them.

Lessons: Build It, Launch It (Can you drop an egg without breaking it?, What makes a paper plane fly farthest?, How does a rocket push itself into space?)

Practice: Build It, Launch It workbook · Evidence Lab workbook · How Your Body Works workbook · Keep It Cool: Ice, Insulation and Staying Comfortable workbook · Winter Science: Ice, Snow and Staying Warm workbook · Think Like a Scientist: The Scientific Method workbook · Test the Claim: Science Facts, Myths and AI Answers workbook · Steppe Science: Staying Warm on the Kazakh Steppe workbook · Monsoon Science: Rain, Sun and the Nón Lá workbook

4.3(A) Develop explanations and propose solutions supported by data and models. Students decide whether a claim is true using their own measurements.

Lessons: Evidence Lab (How do you know a fact is true?, Why do scientists repeat their tests?)

Practice: Evidence Lab workbook · Build It, Launch It workbook · How Your Body Works workbook · Keep It Cool: Ice, Insulation and Staying Comfortable workbook · Winter Science: Ice, Snow and Staying Warm workbook · Think Like a Scientist: The Scientific Method workbook · Test the Claim: Science Facts, Myths and AI Answers workbook · Steppe Science: Staying Warm on the Kazakh Steppe workbook · Monsoon Science: Rain, Sun and the Nón Lá workbook

4.5(E) Investigate how energy flows and matter cycles through systems and how matter is conserved. The sealed jar reuses water and air but needs light.

Lessons: Our Living Planet (Can a jar keep itself alive?, Where does rain come from?)

Practice: Our Living Planet workbook · Food Webs: Who Eats Whom? workbook · The Water Cycle, Start to Finish workbook · Weather Detectives workbook

4.6(A) Classify and describe matter using observable physical properties, including relative density (the ability to sink or float in water) and physical state. The lava-lamp lesson is about oil floating on water and blobs sinking (partial).

Lessons: Kitchen Chemistry for Families

Practice: Kitchen Chemistry for Families workbook · Clean Water Challenge: Mixtures, Dissolving and Separating workbook · Solids, Liquids and Gases workbook · Grade 4 Rocks and Minerals · Test It, Choose It: Materials workbook

4.6(B) Investigate and compare a variety of mixtures, including solutions. Oil and water, and the fizzing tablet in water, are mixtures that do or do not blend.

Lessons: Kitchen Chemistry for Families

Practice: Kitchen Chemistry for Families workbook

4.7 Plan and conduct descriptive investigations to explore the patterns of forces such as gravity, friction, or magnetism in contact or at a distance on an object (an adjacent-grade match: rolling-ball friction and magnet-distance tests).

Lessons: Pushes, Pulls and Magnets (Why does a ball stop rolling?, Can a magnet work through a table?, How far will a paper clip jump?)

Practice: Pushes, Pulls and Magnets workbook · Build It, Launch It workbook · Forces at Work: Gravity, Resistance, Levers and Pulleys workbook

4.8(B) Identify conductors and insulators of thermal and electrical energy. The mitten and snow-den tests compare how well materials slow heat loss.

Lessons: Simple Circuits: Make It Light Up · Winter Science: Ice, Snow and Staying Warm

Practice: Simple Circuits: Make It Light Up workbook · Winter Science: Ice, Snow and Staying Warm workbook · Keep It Cool: Ice, Insulation and Staying Comfortable workbook · Steppe Science: Staying Warm on the Kazakh Steppe workbook

4.8(C) Demonstrate and describe how electrical energy travels in a closed path that can produce light and thermal energy.

Lessons: Simple Circuits: Make It Light Up

Practice: Simple Circuits: Make It Light Up workbook · Keep It Cool: Ice, Insulation and Staying Comfortable workbook · Winter Science: Ice, Snow and Staying Warm workbook · Steppe Science: Staying Warm on the Kazakh Steppe workbook

4.10(A) Describe and illustrate the continuous movement of water through the water cycle and explain the role of the Sun as a major source of energy. Covered by the rain-bag and sweating-cup lessons.

Lessons: Earth and Sky at Home (Where do rainbows come from?, How do crystals grow?, How does a cloud form?) · Our Living Planet (Can a jar keep itself alive?, Where does rain come from?)

Practice: Our Living Planet workbook · The Water Cycle, Start to Finish workbook · Weather Detectives workbook

4.10(B) Model and describe slow changes to Earth's surface caused by weathering, erosion, and deposition from water, wind, and ice. Stream table, sugar-cube tumbling and ice wedging.

Lessons: Rocks and Erosion: How Land Changes Shape

Practice: Rocks and Erosion: How Land Changes Shape workbook · Living with Water: Salt, Rice and the Mekong workbook

4.10(C) Differentiate between weather and climate (a lower-grade match for the weather-versus-climate lesson).

Lessons: Climate Clues (Is this winter colder than when your grandparents were kids?, What can a tree ring tell us?, What's the difference between weather and climate?)

Practice: Weather Detectives workbook · Monsoon Science: Rain, Sun and the Nón Lá workbook

4.11(A) Identify and explain advantages and disadvantages of using Earth's renewable and nonrenewable natural resources such as wind, water, sunlight, coal, oil, and natural gas (a lower-grade match).

Lessons: Power Up: Where Electricity Comes From (Where does our classroom's electricity come from?, Can the wind power our school?, Why don't we use solar power everywhere?)

Practice: Power Up: Where Electricity Comes From workbook · Earth Day Investigations: Make Your School Better workbook · Our Changing Planet: Resources and Human Impact workbook

4.11(B) Explain the critical role of energy resources to modern life and how conservation, disposal, and recycling of natural resources impact the environment.

Lessons: Earth Day Investigations: Make Your School Better

Practice: Earth Day Investigations: Make Your School Better workbook · Our Changing Planet: Resources and Human Impact workbook · Power Up: Where Electricity Comes From workbook

4.12(A) Investigate and explain how most producers can make their own food using sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide through the cycling of matter (an adjacent-grade match: leaf-disk lesson).

Lessons: Food Webs: Who Eats Whom?

Practice: Food Webs: Who Eats Whom? workbook

4.12(B) Describe the cycling of matter and flow of energy through food webs, including the roles of the Sun, producers, consumers, and decomposers (an adjacent-grade match: yarn web and decomposer lessons).

Lessons: Food Webs: Who Eats Whom?

Practice: Food Webs: Who Eats Whom? workbook · Our Living Planet workbook