What does a student learn in StateVirginia,GradeGrade 6,SubjectScience?

Scientists and engineers follow a set of shared practices to ask questions, test ideas, and make sense of evidence. In sixth grade, students learn and use these same practices across every science topic they study.

Students ask testable questions about the natural world and frame problems clearly enough to investigate or solve. This is the starting point for any experiment or engineering project.

Students learn to ask focused questions that identify which factor they are changing in an experiment and which factor they are measuring in response.

Students learn to make a testable prediction about an experiment, then identify which variable they change on purpose and which one they measure to see what happened.

Students identify a problem and suggest a practical fix for it, explaining why their idea could work.

Students design a test or experiment to answer a question, then run it, collect data, and record what happens.

Students plan and run their own investigations, either alone or with a group. They identify what they're changing, what they're keeping the same, and what they're comparing, then handle any chemicals or equipment safely.

Students practice spotting which data-collection methods give reliable results and which don't. They look at how a measurement was taken or an observation was recorded and decide whether the approach was accurate enough to trust.

Students measure length, mass, and volume using metric units like centimeters, grams, and milliliters. They choose the right tool for the job, whether that's a ruler, a balance scale, or a graduated cylinder.

Students pick materials and build a working device meant to solve a real problem. The focus is on making something functional, not just drawing a plan.

Students look at data from an experiment and decide what it means. They spot patterns, question whether the results make sense, and use what they find to support or challenge a conclusion.

Students sort and arrange collected data to spot patterns, like noticing that temperature rises every time a certain variable changes. Finding that pattern is the first step toward explaining why it happens.

Students turn raw numbers into bar graphs, line graphs, or scatter plots, then read those visuals to spot patterns and draw conclusions.

Students look at data collected by different groups on the same question, then explain where the results agree and where they differ.

Students look at test results or measurements to figure out what worked, what didn't, and what to change next in a design.

Students write a conclusion based on their data, then examine whether that conclusion actually holds up. They look for gaps, consider other explanations, and decide what the evidence really supports.

Students write explanations that show how one thing affects another, such as how changing temperature changes the speed of a reaction. They back up that connection with observations or measurements from their investigation.

Students build written explanations for science questions using real evidence, whether from their own experiments or from credible sources they've researched.

Students come up with more than one solution to a problem, then compare those options against the same requirements and limits to decide which works best.

Students build diagrams, drawings, or physical replicas to explain how something works or predict what will happen. The model stands in for the real thing so ideas can be tested and shared.

Students build or interpret scale models to figure out how far apart things really are. A model of the solar system, for example, shows how distances that seem small on paper translate to millions of miles in space.

Students build and update diagrams or other visual models to explain why something happens in nature and to predict what might happen next.

Models help explain how something works, but no model is perfect. Students look at what a model gets wrong or leaves out, and explain where it falls short.

Students read science sources, judge whether the information is reliable, and share what they found in writing or discussion.

Students read science articles and textbooks to pull out facts, data, and explanations they can use in their own work.

Students pull facts from several sources, then check whether each one is trustworthy, accurate, and written without an agenda before using the information in their work.

Students build a written or spoken argument and back it up with actual data from experiments or observations, not just opinion or guesswork.

Everyday energy sources like sunlight, food, and fuel don't just sit still. Students learn how energy moves and changes form, turning from light into heat or motion into sound.

Most of Earth's energy sources trace back to the sun. Coal, oil, wind, and flowing water all exist because sunlight drove the processes that created them.

Earth absorbs energy from the sun and releases it back into space. Students learn how that balance drives weather, ocean currents, and the conditions that keep living things alive.

Heat moves from place to place in three ways: through direct contact between objects, through the flow of liquids or gases, and through invisible waves that can travel even through empty space.

Students trace how energy changes form, like chemical energy in a battery becoming light in a bulb, to understand why some energy gets wasted and how to use it more wisely.

Atoms are the tiny building blocks that make up every solid, liquid, and gas around us. Students learn what atoms are, how they combine to form different materials, and why everything in the physical world is made of the same basic pieces.

Atoms are the tiny building blocks of everything around us. Students learn that each atom contains even smaller parts: a center made of protons and neutrons, with electrons moving around the outside.

Every element is made of its own type of atom. Carbon atoms, iron atoms, and oxygen atoms each look and behave differently from one another, and that difference is what makes each element unique.

Elements are the basic building blocks of matter, and each one has a shorthand symbol scientists use worldwide. For example, O stands for oxygen and Fe stands for iron.

When atoms join together, they share or transfer electrons, creating electrical forces that lock them into a new substance with different properties than the original atoms had.

Chemical formulas are shorthand labels for compounds. Students learn that H2O means water and CO2 means carbon dioxide, reading the letters and numbers as a recipe that shows which elements are bonded together.

Chemical equations are shorthand for showing what happens during a chemical reaction. Students learn to read and write them to track which substances go in and which new substances come out.

A handful of elements, like oxygen, carbon, and silicon, make up most of what students find in the ground, the ocean, the air, and in living things. The rest of the periodic table exists in much smaller amounts.

Students learn how the sun, planets, moons, and other objects in our solar system are arranged and how they affect one another through gravity, orbits, and other forces.

Matter fills every part of the solar system, from the rock and metal packed into planets to the thin gas and dust drifting between them. Students learn where different types of matter are found and why the solar system is not mostly empty space.

Planets range from tiny to enormous, and each one travels its own path around the sun. Closer planets complete that loop faster; farther ones take much longer.

Gravity pulls objects toward each other. That constant pull keeps planets circling the sun and moons circling planets, bending their path into an orbit instead of a straight line into space.

Scientists once thought the sun moved around Earth. Students learn how observations, tools, and new evidence gradually changed that picture into the solar system model we use today.

Relationships between the sun, Earth, and the moon shape what we see in the sky every day. Students study how the positions of these three bodies explain seasons, moon phases, tides, and eclipses.

Students compare Earth to other planets by looking at its atmosphere, water, and surface conditions. Those features make Earth the only planet in our solar system known to support life.

Earth's rotation on its axis causes day and night. The side of Earth facing the sun has daytime, while the opposite side is in darkness.

Students learn why the moon appears to change shape each night. As Earth and the moon orbit the sun, sunlight hits the moon from different angles, making it look like a crescent, a half circle, or a full circle from Earth.

Earth's tilt keeps one hemisphere aimed more toward the sun for part of the year, giving it summer while the other has winter. As Earth orbits, that tilt shifts which half gets the most direct sunlight, which is what drives the seasons.

Tides happen because the moon's gravity pulls on Earth's oceans. Students learn why coastal water levels rise and fall roughly twice a day as the moon orbits Earth.

Water behaves differently from most liquids, and students learn why that matters. They study how water's unusual properties shape weather, ecosystems, and the systems people build to move, store, and use it.

Water dissolves more substances than almost any other liquid on Earth. Students learn why water earns the nickname "universal solvent" and what that means for oceans, soil, and the human body.

Students learn what makes water behave the way it does, including why it expands when it freezes, why certain things dissolve in it, and why it sticks to surfaces.

Heating or cooling a substance can change its form. Students learn how adding or removing heat causes water to freeze, melt, or evaporate, and why that same process drives phase changes in other materials.

Water slowly breaks down rocks by seeping into cracks, freezing, and wearing away surfaces over time. Students learn how this kind of weathering shapes the land around us.

Large bodies of water, like oceans and lakes, absorb heat in summer and release it in winter, keeping nearby land from getting too hot or too cold.

Water powers farms, electric plants, and public water systems. Students learn why protecting and managing freshwater supplies matters for everyday life.

Air is a real substance with measurable properties like temperature, pressure, and humidity. Students study how Earth's atmosphere is layered and how those layers change with weather, altitude, and energy from the sun.

Air is a mixture of invisible gases, mainly nitrogen and oxygen, with small amounts of carbon dioxide and other compounds mixed in.

Students describe the atmosphere's physical traits: how thick it is, what it's made of, and how pressure and temperature change at different altitudes.

The atmosphere does not stay the same from ground to sky. As altitude increases, air pressure drops and temperature shifts in ways that affect weather, flight, and how we breathe.

Moving air carries thermal energy from place to place, and that movement shapes local weather. Students learn why wind, temperature, and storm patterns are connected rather than separate events.

Students read weather data like temperature, air pressure, and humidity to forecast what conditions are likely coming. Meteorologists use patterns in those measurements to predict rain, wind, and temperature changes before they arrive.

Weather maps show where cold and warm fronts are moving, where storm systems are forming, and what the temperature and precipitation look like across a region. Students learn to read those maps to understand what the weather is doing and why.

Watersheds are areas of land where rain and snowmelt drain into the same river, lake, or bay. Students trace how the shape of the land directs water flow and how land and water work together in a single connected system.

A watershed is all the land that funnels rainfall and snowmelt into one river, lake, or bay. Students learn to identify the boundaries of a watershed and explain how land use affects what flows into that water.

Students learn that Virginia is divided into several watersheds, each shaped by its own rivers, ridges, and drainage patterns that funnel rainfall toward different bodies of water.

An estuary is where a river meets the ocean, mixing fresh and salt water. The Chesapeake Bay is one of the largest estuaries in the country, and students learn why it matters for fish, wildlife, clean water, and the people who live near it.

Students study how rain, runoff, farming, and pollution all affect the health of a watershed, the network of land and water that drains into a single river or lake.

Students explore how human activity affects land, water, and air, then look at how citizens and lawmakers make decisions about energy use and environmental protection.

Students learn why natural resources like fresh water, soil, and forests matter and why people work to protect them before they run out or get damaged.

Resources like sunlight and wind renew on their own, while coal and oil take millions of years to replace. Students learn how people manage both kinds to avoid running out.

Students learn why polluted air and water make people sick, and how communities set rules to keep both clean enough to be safe.

Students learn how different energy sources, from power lines to fuel, can cause injuries or long-term health problems. They study why safety rules around electricity, radiation, and heat exist.

Students learn how choices like erosion barriers, buffer zones, and land-use rules can prevent damage to soil and water before a hazard starts.

Conservation policies protect natural resources, but they come with tradeoffs. Students weigh what a policy costs against what it saves, like jobs lost versus land preserved, to decide whether the benefit is worth the price.