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The Science curriculum can be greatly enriched by the skills that students will bring with them from the Connected Mathematics Program (CMP). It may be helpful to Science teachers to be aware of the ways in which the new curriculum links to Science methods and topics. Below are topics covered in the CMP 6th Grade units.

Sixth Grade Problems and Topics

• Students determine when both 13-year locusts and 17-year locusts will appear in the same year. (6th Grade Prime Time)
• Determine when four orbiting planets will be in conjunction based on the number of years it takes each planet to orbit the sun. (6th Grade Prime Time)
• Posing questions: formulate key questions to explore and decide what data to collect to address the questions. (6th Grade Data About Us) Students can be given more responsibility in a lab exercise to develop questions and decide what data needs to be collected.
• Collecting Data: decide how to collect data and actually collect it. (6th Grade Data About Us)
• Analyzing Data: organize, represent, summarize, and describe the data and look for patterns in the data. (6th Grade Data About Us) Rather than giving students blank tables to fill in, students should be able to create tables that are well labeled and organized.
• Interpreting results: predict, compare, and identify relationships and use the results from the analyses to make decisions about the original questions. (6th Grade Data About Us) The conclusion sections of lab reports often give students opportunities to practice these skills.
• Graph comprehension: Reading the data, reading between the data, and reading beyond the data. (6th Grade Data About Us) Investigations should end with predictions or projections based on the data. This leads to "what next" type of questions.
• Create and read line plots, bar graphs, stem and leaf plots, and coordinate graphs. (6th Grade Data About Us)
• Identify the mode, median, range, and mean in a set of data. Understand the significance of each type of average. (6th Grade Data About Us) Teachers should be specific when asking students to find the "average" as they learn in Math class that there are many ways to talk about what is "typical" in a data set. Science teachers can expand their analyses past just finding the mean and look at the mode, median, and range of data sets as well.
• Distinguish between categorical and numerical data. (6th Grade Data About Us) Scientists also refer to these categories as "qualitative" and "quantitative" data.
• Discuss the life span of rats and rabbits based on the median age and the mean age of these animals. (6th Grade Data About Us)
• Use stem and leaf plots to graph and compare data collected on rope jumping rates of boys and girls. (6th Grade Data About Us) Rate data is often collected in Science classes. Stem and leaf plots are a simple way to look at large sets of numbers.
• Create and read coordinate graphs compare two sets of data such as arm span vs. height of a student. (6th Grade Data About Us) There are many opportunities to compare sets of data in this way in our Science classes. For example, students might make a coordinate graph that shows the relationship between amount of exercise and heart rate.
• Students create a unit project in which they develop, conduct, evaluate, and report the results of a survey. (6th Grade Data About Us)
• Students study the shape of bee hives formed from tiled hexagons. (6th Grade Shapes and Designs)
• Explore how honey bees communicate with each other using the angles of movement in a special flight dance. (6th Grade Bits and Pieces Part I)
• Compare decimal numbers and sort them by size. (6th Grade Bits and Pieces Part I) Students using the metric system in Science classes will need to be able to compare decimal data.
• Use decimals to describe fractional parts of a whole. (6th Grade Bits and Pieces Part I)
• Study the subdivisions of a metric ruler. (6th Grade Bits and Pieces Part I) Determining masses using balances requires the same skills of reading a metric scale.
• Determine percentages of different types of cats listed in a data base. (6th Grade Bits and Pieces Part I) Students can be asked to convert data they collect in Science classes into percentages to help with comparisons.
• Read a table of data and compare the data using percents. (6th Grade Bits and Pieces Part I)
• Find areas and perimeters of rectangular shapes and non rectangular shapes, and relate perimeter and area. (6th Grade Covering and Surrounding) In Life Science the concepts of area, surface area, and volume have many applications as we talk of increased surface area of leaves depending on environment, maximized surface area in the villi of the small intestine, increased surface area in the lungs due to branched air passages, and problems of heat loss for animals with a high surface area to volume ratio.
• Measure the area of odd shapes like a foot or hand using a transparent grid. (6th Grade Covering and Surrounding) Students might compare the area of the upper epidermis of various types of leaves.
• Look at two lakes with different shapes and determine which would be best for water birds that need long shorelines for nesting and fishing. (6th Grade Covering and Surrounding)
• Compare head circumference and waist circumference of students using a coordinate graph. (6th Grade Covering and Surrounding) In all areas of Science, students are asked to make comparisons and look for patterns. Coordinate graphs are a great way to visualize relationships between sets of data.
• Transform rectangles into shapes with greater perimeter (6th Grade Covering and Surrounding) When we look at a cross section of the lining of the small intestine, we see that the perimeter has been increased by the finger like projections of the villi. This results in an increased amount of membrane to absorb nutrients.
• Find the maximum and minimum perimeter you could have with a fixed area. (6th Grade Covering and Surrounding) In some biological systems, there is a need for a maximized surface area (or perimeter when examining a cross section) such as for nutrient absorption in the small intestine. Sometimes, however, there is a greater advantage to having a minimized surface area such as in the rounded brain cavity of the skull where there is less exposure to possible trauma.
• Students solve a problem where damaged trees in New York City need to be replaced in a way that conserves the amount of tree area. (6th Grade Covering and Surrounding) Ecologists worry about the decreasing amount of land area covered by trees.
• Given various shapes with the same perimeter, students discover that a circle contains the greatest area. (6th Grade Covering and Surrounding) Many shapes in nature are circular or spherical. This has to do with the maximized area and the low surface area to volume ratios of these shapes. Structures like the alveoli in the lungs can be looked at in cross section to discuss the area vs. perimeter.

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