General Science Content Standards

Know the functions of cellulose, starch, glycogen, and chitin in cells.

Know the many possible functions of proteins in cells.

Understand how nucleic acids are classified (single stranded, double stranded, RNA, DNA), and how Watson-Crick base pairing (G with C, A with T or U) leads to a double helical structure consisting of two complementary strands.

Understand how fatty acids are classified (saturated, unsaturated), and the general structures and functions of triglycerides, phospholipids, and steroids.

Know how enzyme activity is affected by inhibitors, pH, salt concentration, and temperature conditions, and how metabolic pathways are frequently controlled by feedback inhibition.

Know the historical scientific contributions of Hooke, Leeuwenhoek, Schleiden and Schwann to cell theory, and the types of instruments that are currently used to visualize cells at different scales.

Know the differences between plant and animal cells.

Understand the distinctions between simple diffusion, facilitated diffusion, osmosis, and active transport in a cell system. Understand how osmotic pressure affects various types of cells.

Know the basic functions of glycolysis, fermentation, the citric acid cycle, and the electron transport system, and their compartmentalization in a cell.

Know the basic functions of the light-dependent and light-independent reactions of photosynthesis, and their compartmentalization in a cell.

Understand the endomembrane system of eukaryotic cells, including vesicle transport from the endoplasmic reticulum and Golgi apparatus to the cell surface, various types of endocytosis, and lysosome function.

Understand the basic structures and functions of the following: nucleus, nucleolus, nuclear pore, cytoskeleton, mitochondrion, chloroplast, large central vacuole, contractile vacuole, peroxisome, ribosome, cell wall, cell membrane, cilium and flagellum.

Predict the probability of each possible genotype and phenotype in a genetic cross, given the genotypes of the parents and the mode of inheritance.

Explain the causes of common genetic diseases, their mode of inheritance, and their effects on phenotypes

Explain which non-lethal aneuploidies chromosomal abnormalities occur in humans, and their effects.

Understand how Watson and Crick determined the structure of DNA, and the importance of Franklin’s work. Explain how the structure of DNA allows it to serve as its own template for replication.

Understand that the sequence of nucleotides in a gene determines the sequence of amino acids in a polypeptide, and explain the basic processes of transcription and translation, by which the information in the gene is used to direct the synthesis of a polypeptide.

Understand how genotype causes phenotype. Explain what mutations are, how they occur, and how they may or may not affect the expression of the gene, the function of the encoded protein, and the phenotype.

Place significant biological events (e.g., appearance of prokaryotes, oxygen accumulation in the atmosphere, appearance of eukaryotes, first multicellular organisms, first land plants, and first vertebrates) on the geologic time scale.

Define mass extinction and know when the two most significant mass extinctions occurred. Describe the fossil record before and after a mass extinction.

Compare and contrast the three forms of natural selection and examples of each (stabilizing, divergent, and directional). Understand the pressures that lead to sexual selection, and how this can lead to sexual dimorphism.

Understand how natural selection acts on variations within a population which in turn depend on variations in genotype, and how this can result in change in the statistical distribution of genotypes.

Understand the effects of genetic drift in small populations. Discuss bottlenecks and their effects on a population’s genetic makeup.

Compare macroevolution and microevolution and explain how microevolution leads to speciation.

Compare and contrast gradualism and punctuated equilibrium in biological evolution and describe the evidence for each.

Compare and contrast the concepts of homologous and analogous structures.

Cite the progress since Darwin (e.g., molecular and Mendelian genetics, biochemistry, and developmental biology) that has improved and broadened our understanding of evolution.

Understand the various definitions of a species.

Describe the evidence for evolutionary connections among new world monkeys, old world monkeys, and great apes, including hominids and humans.

Describe the levels of organization, including cells, tissues, organs, organ systems, and the whole animal. Describe the structure and function of various types of animal tissues.

Explain how the interactions of respiratory, circulatory, digestive, and excretory systems provide cells with oxygen and nutrients and remove toxic waste products such as carbon dioxide and nitrogenous wastes. Understand the importance of surface area in these systems.

Explain how the nervous system mediates communication between different parts of the body and allows an organism to respond to and interact with its environment. Describe the roles of sensory neurons, interneurons, motor neurons, and supporting cells.

Describe the structure and function of each major part of the human brain.

Trace the route of food through the alimentary canal and explain how its movement is regulated. Discuss the structure and function of each organ in the digestive system. List what secretions are added, where they are added, and the purpose of each.

Trace the route of blood through the human body, describe the various types of blood vessels and explain their functions, and explain how the heart functions.

Define blood pressure, explain how this causes a pulse that can be felt, and explain the difference between systole and diastole. Describe the conditions that can lead to heart disease, the changes this causes in arteries, and how heart attacks and strokes occur.

Describe the structure and function of the various components of blood, including blood clots .

Describe the structures of the human respiratory system and explain how negative pressure breathing works. Explain how oxygen and carbon dioxide are carried in the blood, and how a CO2-sensing feedback mechanism regulates respiration rate.

Describe the body’s nonspecific defenses, including the roles of the skin and secretions, the steps of the inflammatory response, and the roles of phagocytic cells and antimicrobial proteins.

Explain how vaccines work to confer immunity. Explain the difference between active and passive immunity, and how passive immunity can be obtained. Understand why the evolutionary properties of many viruses make the development of effective vaccines a problem.

Identify the various types of pathogens and explain their differences in structure and in how they cause disease. Describe the body’s defenses against bacterial and viral infections, and effective treatments of these infections.

Describe disorders of the immune system and their effects, including allergies, autoimmune diseases, and immunodeficiency diseases. Explain how AIDS develops and why individuals with AIDS often die as a result of opportunistic infections.

Explain the function of the kidneys in removing nitrogenous wastes from the blood and in regulating osmotic balance. Describe how the structure of the kidneys allows the processes of filtration, reabsorption, secretion, and excretion to occur. Name the other components of the excretory system and describe their functions.

Describe the various organs in the human endocrine system and the effects of the hormones produced by each. Explain the differences between paracrine and endocrine signaling.

Describe the multiple roles of the liver and its involvement in the balance of glucose and other nutrients in the blood.

Describe the structures of the male and female reproductive systems and explain how they function. Understand the role of hormones in development of primary and secondary sexual characteristics, and in regulating the menstrual cycle.

Describe the structures of the musculoskeletal system and explain the roles of bones, muscles, tendons, and ligaments. Describe the various types of joints and their functions. Explain why muscles exist in opposing pairs

Describe the cellular structure of a leaf, and discuss how this facilitates photosynthesis. Explain how transpiration occurs and how it is regulated.

Explain how meristematic tissues allow both primary growth and secondary growth. Discuss how annual rings are formed in trees and woody plants.

Discuss asexual reproduction in plants; explain how it occurs both in nature and in agriculture.

Know how competition and predation control population size; understand the term “carrying capacity” as it is applied to a particular habitat.

Explain why the biotic potential of a population differs from the actual growth rate and understand the difference between an exponential growth curve and the growth curve of a population that is limited by the carrying capacity of its habitat.

Distinguish between the concepts of a theoretical and realized niche. Interpret Gause’s principle of competitive exclusion in terms of a niche. Know how interspecific competition affects communities and leads to resource partitioning.

Understand age structure graphs as they relate to population structure and dynamics.

Distinguish between mutualism, parasitism, and commensalism and cite examples of each.

Understand camouflage, mimicry and aposematic coloration as it relates to co-evolution.

Know the three principal stages of the nitrogen cycle. Know three processes that can reduce the amount of nitrate available to plants.

Understand the implications on mineral cycling of the human practices of fertilization of land and harvesting of crops. Explain how these implications are different for nutrients whose major inorganic reservoir is the atmosphere rather than the soil.

Understand energy transfer through the trophic levels of a food web and that much of the energy is lost as heat. Differentiate between a biomass pyramid, pyramid of production, and a pyramid of numbers. Explain the role of scavengers, detritivores, and decomposers (particularly bacteria and fungi) as recyclers in the ecosystem.

Understand the processes of biological succession and differentiate between primary and secondary succession.

Understand the human impact on ecosystems and the biosphere (e.g. global warming, depletion of resources, introduction of non-native species, ozone depletion, water projects, agriculture, deforestation, and cultural eutrophication).

Know the abiotic factors that affect the geographical distribution of organisms on a global scale. Know the following biological communities in terms of their primary productivity: deserts, tropical rain forests, and temperate forests.

Know the contributions of Mendeleyev to the periodic table.

Write electron configurations for both neutral atoms and simple ions (having noble gas and pseudo-noble gas configurations) and use orbital diagrams to predict the number of unpaired electrons.

Relate the vapor pressure and boiling or melting point of a solid or liquid substance, to its principal bonding mode ionic, covalent, hydrogen, or van der Waals (London dispersion forces) bonding.

Use the octet rule to generalize the chemistry of each family of elements. Know when to expect the octet rule to be valid and when it can fail.

Draw electron-dot Lewis structures of molecules and polyatomic ions employing multiple bonding resonance structures, single bonds, double bonds, triple bonds and non-bonded electron pairs.

Use the periodic table to predict whether a given bond is ionic, polar covalent, or non-polar covalent.

Give formulas and names of common polyatomic ions, ionic compounds, binary molecular compounds, and common acids

Balance chemical equations for various reactions, including composition (synthesis), decomposition, combustion, and single and double displacement and acid/base neutralization.

Assess chemical reaction rates and the factors that affect reaction rates, including the roles of concentration, pressure, surface area, temperature, catalysts, and activation energy.

Express the relative rates of consumption of reactants and formation of products using the coefficients of a balanced chemical equation.

Know that in an electrochemical cell oxidation occurs at the anode and reduction occurs at the cathode.

Describe the use of chromatography and fractional distillation as analytical tools and give examples of chemical procedures in which they are especially useful.

Analyze the solution process in terms of solute-solute, solute-solvent, and solvent-solvent interactions.

Explain the circumstances under which osmosis occurs and explain osmotic pressure.

Analyze the basic assumptions of kinetic molecular theory and its applications, including the way in which the ideal-gas model approximates real gases.

Understand how random motion of molecules and their collisions with a surface create the observable pressure on that surface

Understand and apply the ideal gas law, pV = nRT; understand the relationship between the absolute temperature of a gas and its kinetic energy per mole: K = 3/2 RT.

Understand and apply Dalton’s law of partial pressures to a mixture of gases.

Describe nuclear fission and fusion reactions.

Describe the process used to convert nuclear energy into electrical energy in commercial reactors

Describe the function of instruments humans have used to discover the structure and content of the universe, including optical telescopes, radio, infrared, and X-ray telescopes, and spectrometers, and describe the roles they play in gathering information about the universe and its constituents.

Explain how we infer the age of the universe.

Describe the life cycle of the sun and the composition and characteristics of the sun (a typical star, powered by nuclear reactions).

Describe the structure and general history of the solar system, including the formation of the sun, the outer planets, the inner planets, and the planetary satellites.

Describe the motions of the planets (rotation, revolution, precession and the periods of these) and the various inclinations of their axes to their orbit planes.

Describe the appearance, composition, and relative position of objects in the solar system (sun, moon, terrestrial and gas giant planets, Pluto, planetary satellites, comets and asteroids).

Describe the effects of later (post-accretion) asteroid impacts on shaping the surface of planets and their moons and the evidence suggesting their possible role in mass extinctions of life on Earth.

Properly use the terms continental and oceanic crust, mantle, lithosphere, asthenosphere, inner and outer core.

Define what geologists mean by the term “mineral.”

Understand that minerals are classified according to their anionic groups, and some important groups are native elements, sulfides, oxides, carbonates, sulfates, and silicates.

Understand that samples of minerals may be identified by certain diagnostic physical and chemical properties, chiefly color, luster, streak, cleavage, specific gravity, hardness, and crystal form, and occasional special properties such as magnetism, striations, and reactivity with acid.

Using a key, identify hand samples of common rock-forming and ore minerals.

Using a key, identify samples of common rocks by reference to their composition (mineralogy) and texture (including grain size): Igneous rocks – intrusive and extrusive (granite, diorite, gabbro, rhyolite, andesite, basalt, obsidian, tuff and pumice); Metamorphic rocks (slate, schist, gneiss, marble, quartzite, metaconglomerate); sedimentary rocks – clastic and chemical/biogenic (conglomerate, breccia, sandstone, shale and mudstone, limestone, gypsum).

Explain processes related to the formation of igneous rocks from parent rocks (including Bowen’s reaction series): melting/crystallization of pure substances and mixtures (continuous and discontinuous behavior in solid solution series); slow and fast cooling in relation to crystal size.

Explain processes related to sedimentary rock formation from parent rock:

1. types of chemical and physical weathering;

2. erosion;

3. transportation;

4. deposition;

5. lithification.

Explain how rates of weathering are related to mineralogy and climate.

Describe a variety of depositional environments and their deposits (e.g., stream deposits, deltas, alluvial fans, lakebeds, glacial tills, turbidites).

Describe a variety of landforms produced by erosional processes (e.g., sinkholes, cirques, stream and glacial valleys).

Understand the relationship between weathering and soil formation.

Know how to make and interpret contour maps and cross-sections.

Know that Earth’s magnetic field is probably generated by the flow of conducting material in its liquid outer core.

Understand that the Earth’s magnetic field varies continuously over time in both direction and intensity, and reverses polarity at irregular intervals.

Explain that most rocks possess a weak remanent magnetism that records the geomagnetic field which existed at the time of the rock’s formation.

Describe Wegener’s lines of evidence in support of his theory of continental drift.

Describe the evidence for seafloor spreading in terms of the age and topographic features of the ocean bottom and “hot spots.”

Explain the paleomagnetic evidence – apparent polar wander curves and marine magnetic anomalies – that supports of the theory of plate tectonics.

Describe mantle convection as the driving mechanism moving lithospheric plates.

Describe the relative motion of plates in terms of their interaction at divergent, convergent and transform boundaries.

Describe plate boundaries in terms of the processes and structures that frequently occur there – earthquakes, deep trenches, arc volcanism, rifting, folding and mountain building.

Explain explosive and “quiet” volcanism in terms of the viscosity and gas content of magma and how this relates to the chemistry of the magma and the plate tectonic setting.

Describe typical igneous structures and their origins – composite and shield volcanoes, cinder cones, dikes and sills, craters and calderas, flood basalts, volcanic domes and pillows.

Explain the elastic rebound theory for the generation of earthquakes.

Describe the particle motion and relative velocity of seismic ps, and l waves.

Explain the process by which seismologists locate the focus and epicenter of an earthquake.

Define earthquake intensity and magnitude, and describe the process by which simple (Richter) magnitude and (modified Mercalli) intensity are measured and reported.

Compare and contrast relative and absolute dating of Earth materials in terms of their aims and sources of error and explain how these are used together to build chronologies.

Explain the methods used for absolute dating of Earth materials, considering

• radioactive decay and half-life calculations;

• choice of isotopes for different age ranges;

• cross-checking using several decay systems;

• sources of systematic error.

Explain the principles, uses, and limitations of carbon dating.

Know the principal divisions (eons and eras) of geologic time, and the basis for placing the temporal boundaries.

Describe the evidence supporting an asteroid impact at the Cretaceous/Tertiary (K-T) boundary.

Describe the fate of incoming solar radiation in terms of reflection and absorption, and its role in photosynthesis.

Describe the formation of the early atmosphere and hydrosphere as a result of the phenomena of outgassing and meteorite impacts as the primordial Earth cooled.

Explain how the composition of the Earth’s atmosphere has evolved over geologic time and in particular the origin of atmospheric oxygen.

Describe the thermal structure and chemical composition of the atmosphere.

Identify the location of the ozone layer, its role in absorbing ultraviolet radiation, and the recent depletion of high-altitude ozone and its probable cause.

Distinguish between weather and climate.

Know how barometers, weather maps, weather satellites, thermometers, anemometers, hygrometers, weather balloons, and computer models are used to acquire and process vast amounts of data in real time to forecast weather.

Explain processes that cause air to rise and the consequent formation of clouds, and the weather that can be predicted on the basis of the presence of different types of clouds.

Describe warm and cold fronts and their effects on the weather.

Explain the role of adiabatic heating and cooling on the altitudinal dependence of air temperature.

Explain the role of the latent heat of water in distributing heat energy and the role of the specific heat of water in tempering climate near coastlines.

Explain the mechanisms of heat transfer between and within the atmosphere, land masses and oceans that drive the movement of air around the planet.

Explain that differences in atmospheric pressure from place to place cause convective air currents (winds).

Know that Earth’s climate has changed many times in geologic history and on many time scales and give some of the commonly cited evidence for global climate changes from stable isotopes in marine fossils and trapped atmospheric gases in polar ice cores.

Understand the general mechanism of the greenhouse effect, including the facts that bodies at different temperatures radiate energy with different wavelength distributions, and that various gases are either transparent to or absorb different wavelengths of radiation.

Describe the relative abundance of water in various reservoirs at or near the Earth’s surface, giving approximate percentages of the total stored as saline water in the oceans and fresh water in lakes, streams, glaciers, clouds, and ground water.

Describe the general topography of the ocean bottom, including continental shelf, slope, rise, abyss, trench, seamounts and mid-oceanic ridge system.

Describe and discuss the importance of the process of upwelling which brings “old” deepwater back to the surface ocean.

Describe the causes and the general pattern of surface currents in the ocean.

Explain the mechanism causing tides in the ocean and the solid Earth. Explain how coastal landforms can magnify tidal oscillations.

Define a stream as any body of water confined to a channel and moving downhill under the influence of gravity.

Describe the topography of a typical stream, including its cross-sectional profile, channel, flood plain, and natural levees.

Describe the development of a drainage basin as sheetwash merges into rills, small streams, tributaries and major rivers.

Explain how braided and meandering streams may change their courses through processes of (headward and lateral) erosion and deposition and how they build deltas when they reach base level, usually the ocean.

Define porosity and permeability, and describe the process by which water moves through the ground, collects in aquifers, and is discharged in springs and rivers.

Explain the processes by which glaciers form, move, and erode the landscape.

Describe the availability, geographic distribution, wise use and conservation, and recycling of Earth’s most important non-renewable mineral and energy resources.

Describe the advantages and disadvantages of using various non-fossil fuel sources of energy for industrial and individual uses.

Describe common sources of air and water pollution and ways to reduce pollution.

Describe the mechanisms and effects of secondary hazards from earthquakes, including fire, landsliding, liquefaction, tsunami.

Describe the relative hazards of various types of volcanic eruptions, including nuées ardentes, lava flows, phreatic eruptions, gas emissions, lahars, and pyroclastic eruptions.

Describe the tendency for rivers to flood, and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of various types of human intervention for flood control, including building levees and dams, and channelization.

Explain the relationship among the kinematic quantities position, displacement, speed, velocity, acceleration, and time.

Apply the kinematic equations for one-dimensional motion at constant speed and motion at constant acceleration.

Draw and interpret graphs describing the position, velocity, and acceleration of a body as a function of time.

Add forces vectorially in two dimensions, using graphical methods.

Add forces vectorially in two dimensions, using trigonometric relations to calculate components.

Draw and describe the use of the free-body diagram in analyzing the net force acting on a body.

Describe the motion of the simple pendulum oscillating with small amplitude.

Explain the conditions that lead to stable, unstable, and neutral equilibrium of a body.

Explain that Newton was able to show how universal the gravitational force is.

Calculate the work W done in raising a body of mass m through a vertical distance h.

Calculate the mechanical advantage of a variety of simple machines.

Understand the relationship between energy and power.