Sixth Grade Science


Nebulas, bones, Uranium, water quality, the body's ability to run from a 70-foot tall wall of fire, parallel universes, orienteering, and Lewis and Clark…and that's just the beginning of sixth grade science! Sixth grade science is a conglomeration of topics including chemistry, astronomy, human anatomy, and mapping. Movement during an average class includes standing in chairs and on tables, singing songs, going on "mini field trips," cheering on our friends when they have the right answer, class and small group discussions, as well as conducting lots of hands-on labs and class activities to help us gain a better understanding of what we are studying.

We begin the school year with learning about the one commonality of everything in the world around us, chemistry. We explore atoms, molecules, the periodic table, elements, mixtures, and solutions. To apply our newly learned knowledge we conduct a water quality study of the two ponds on the Athens Academy campus to determine if it is a good environment for fish to survive and flourish.

After exploring atoms, and elements we extend our study to the larger things in life like Earth, the solar system, galaxies, the universe, and beyond with our astronomy unit. We begin looking at the earth, moon, and sun and their affect on life on Earth. We travel further into space as we conduct research and class presentations on the planets that make up our solar system. We wrap up our unit of astronomy by exploring questions such as, "what is the difference between meteors, meteorites, and meteoroids" "What else is out there in our galaxy, and ultimately the universe?"

In the spring we bring our focus back to life on Earth as we begin our exploration of the human body and its systems. We start with the digestive system and begin to understand where all of the nutritious food we learned about in the fifth grade goes in our body and what it's used for. We then follow the nutrients as they travel through our body by studying the circulatory and respiratory systems. As the nutrients and oxygen reach the cells of our body we learn about how they are used in cellular respiration to create energy which fuels the movements of and within our body.

We wrap up our study of the human body with a look into the endocrine systems and the role that hormones play in our lives. We combine the endocrine system with the reproductive system to help us understand the changes that occur during puberty.

In the middle of our human body unit we have a small unit on orienteering and mapping. We apply our base knowledge of orienteering and mapping with a cross-curriculum activity that is combined with the social studies unit on Lewis and Clark, and math's graphing and ratio unit.


Last updated 10/20/2011 2:56 PM