PROGRAM OF STUDIES AND
CURRICULUM OVERVIEW

LIFE SCIENCE
Grade 7

Characteristics of Living Things

• Describe the life processes and use them to distinguish between living and non- living things
• Describe those things that are difficult to classify as living or non-living, such as viruses
• Investigate the basic particles of matter as they relate to living organisms
• Recognize chemical symbols, formulas, and equations and demonstrate their role in the life processes

Cells and Genetics

• Outline the cell theory and describe how it developed
• Recognize that basic life processes such as photosynthesis and respiration occur at the cellular level
• Describe the structure and function of plant and animal cell parts
• Explain how each organism carries a set of instructions for specifying characteristics of the organism

Classification of Life

• Explain how scientists determine the relatedness of organisms and how they classify living organisms

• Describe how different life functions are carried out by different organisms

• Construct and apply a dichotomous key

The Five Kingdoms

• Identify the characteristics of organisms in each of the five kingdoms

• Explain how organisms in each of the five kingdoms carry on basic life functions

• Describe what our world would be like without organisms from each of the five kingdoms

• Understand the complimentary nature of structure and function as it relates to organisms in each of the five kingdoms