What does a student learn in StateNorth Carolina,GradeGrade 4,SubjectScience?

Forces like pushing, pulling, or gravity change how an object moves. Students learn to predict whether something will speed up, slow down, or change direction based on the forces acting on it.

Magnets push and pull other objects without touching them. Students ask questions and look for patterns in how two magnets attract or repel each other depending on how they are held.

Students test what happens when two electrically charged objects get close to each other, observing when they push apart or pull together and how that force moves objects.

Sound, light, heat, and electricity can all move energy from one place to another. Students learn to recognize how each one carries energy and what changes when that energy arrives somewhere new.

Students learn that energy comes in forms like light, sound, heat, and electricity, and that each one can make things move or change. They practice asking questions about what kind of energy is at work in everyday situations.

Students draw or build a model of a simple circuit to show how a battery, wire, and bulb work together to move electricity and light the bulb.

Students test everyday materials like plastic, wood, metal, and rubber to find out which ones let electricity flow through (conductors) and which ones block it (insulators).

Students learn what light is and how it behaves when it hits different objects, such as bouncing off a mirror, passing through glass, or being absorbed by a dark surface.

Students shine a light at a mirror and track where the beam goes. By changing the angle of the mirror, they figure out the rule for how light bounces.

Students investigate what happens when light passes through water or glass and bends, and why some objects feel warm after sitting in sunlight. Both effects come down to how materials interact with light.

Students learn why some animals and plants survive when their habitat changes and others don't. They look at body features and behaviors, like a bear hibernating or a cactus storing water, that help living things adjust.

Plants and animals have outside body parts built for survival. Students use models to explain how a cactus spine, a bird's beak, or a bear's fur helps each creature stay alive in its habitat.

Animals take in information through their senses, process it in the brain, and react. Students use diagrams or models to show how an animal might hear a sound, decide what it means, and then respond.

Some animals in a group are born slightly different from others. Students look at evidence to explain why those differences can help certain animals survive and have offspring when their habitat changes.

Fossils are clues left behind by ancient plants and animals. Students learn what fossils tell us about creatures that lived long ago and how life on Earth has changed over time.

Students look at fossils and compare them to animals and plants alive today, using those similarities and differences as clues about what life looked like long ago.

Fossils are clues about what Earth looked like long ago. Students study fossil evidence to figure out what the climate, plants, and animals of a place might have been like before humans were around to record it.

Day and night happen because Earth spins, putting one side in sunlight and the other in shadow. Moon phases happen because we see different amounts of the sunlit side of the moon as it travels around Earth each month.

Students use a model, like a globe and a flashlight, to show why Earth's spin gives us day and night. The side facing the sun gets light; the side turned away goes dark.

Students learn why the moon looks different each night by using diagrams or models to trace its cycle from a thin crescent to a full circle and back. The pattern repeats every month.

Students study how Earth's surface changes over time, from earthquakes and volcanoes reshaping land quickly to wind and water wearing it down slowly. They look for patterns in how and why those changes happen.

Students test real minerals by scratching, rubbing, and examining them to sort each one by how hard it is, what color it leaves on a surface, and how its surface reflects light.

Students sort rocks into three groups by studying what they are made of and how they formed. Heat and pressure make one kind, layered sediment makes another, and cooled magma makes the third.

Students use diagrams or physical models to show how Earth's surface changes, from slow shifts like wind and water wearing down rocks to sudden events like earthquakes or volcanic eruptions.

Students study how human actions, like building roads or cutting down forests, change the land, water, and air around them. They learn to recognize which changes cause problems for plants, animals, and people.

Students look at changes in a habitat, like a forest being cleared or a pond being cleaned up, and figure out whether those changes help or hurt the animals and plants living there.

Students look at real examples like rain gardens or recycling programs and use evidence to argue which human behaviors help people live safely in a changing environment.

Students look at real environmental problems affecting plants and animals, then compare different solutions to decide which ones actually help.