Physical Science · California Grade 7
MS-PS1-3
Gather and make sense of information to describe that synthetic materials come from natural resources and impact society.
Clarification statement: Emphasis is on natural resources that undergo a chemical process to form the synthetic material. Examples of new materials could include new medicine, foods, and alternative fuels.
Assessment boundary: Assessment is limited to qualitative information.
Chapters
The polymer section names three human-made materials and the natural polymers in living things. This chapter only introduces what a polymer is; the natural-resource origins and societal impacts that MS-PS1-3 requires are taught in Lesson 15.
Aspirin is a synthetic medicine made by chemical reactions from a substance in willow bark. This chapter uses the story as background for evaluating designs; Lesson 15 develops the PE itself.
Every section of the lesson traces a synthetic material (plastics, polyester, ethanol, sucralose, paclitaxel) to its natural resource and the chemical process that made it, and weighs its effects on people and the environment. W3, W6, W8, Lab 2 and the task slide have students gather information from texts and sources, judge whether claims are supported (W6, W8 and Lab 2 rate sources directly) and describe origins and impacts in words; no quantitative life-cycle analysis is required, which respects the assessment boundary.
Worksheets (12)
| Chapter | Worksheet | Role | How it connects |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ch. 3 | W3 · Sink, Float, Sort: How a Recycling Plant Tells Plastics Apart Reading with evidence | supports | Background only: the passage mentions that plastics are synthetic materials made from natural resources and that recycling them affects society. It does not gather information about how they are made. |
| Ch. 12 | W3 · From Willow Bark to a White Powder: Proving Something New Was Made Reading with evidence | supports | Aspirin is a synthetic material whose story begins with a natural resource, willow bark, changed by chemical processes. The passage gives qualitative background for this Grade 7 PE without asking students to gather information themselves. |
| Ch. 15 | W1 · Two Black Jackets: Where Did Each One Come From? Phenomenon exploration | practice | Students begin tracing a synthetic material (faux leather) and a natural one (leather) back to their starting resources and listing effects on people, which is the information-gathering this PE asks for. No evidence is produced yet; this sheet opens the questions. |
| Ch. 15 | W2 · Resource, Process, Material: Words That Trace a Product Back to Nature Vocabulary in action | practice | Sorting real products into natural resources and synthetic materials, and naming the process between them, is the qualitative tracing this PE asks students to do. The sheet practices the vocabulary the later evidence-gathering sheets depend on. |
| Ch. 15 | W3 · Stockings, Tires and a War: How Synthetic Materials Took Over Reading with evidence | assesses | The passage traces Bakelite, nylon, synthetic rubber and PET back to coal tar and petroleum and describes their effects on daily life, wartime supply and waste. Students answer by citing the text, which is qualitative information-gathering and sense-making as the PE and its assessment boundary describe. |
| Ch. 15 | W4 · From Oil Well to Jersey: Reading and Building a Resource-to-Product Trace Diagrams and models | assesses | Students read a trace from crude oil to polyester, identify which steps are chemical processes, compare the natural and synthetic version of the same product, and then construct their own resource-to-product trace for corn ethanol or PLA. The products are qualitative, which matches the assessment boundary. |
| Ch. 15 | W5 · Does It Break Down, and Is It Worth It? Two Cup Datasets Data and graphing | practice | The datasets give students a concrete picture of how a synthetic material's end of life depends on conditions and how its benefits trade against costs. The PE is assessed with qualitative information, so this quantitative sheet builds understanding rather than serving as evidence for the PE. |
| Ch. 15 | W6 · Should the Festival Switch to Corn Cups? A Claim-Evidence-Reasoning Case Claim, evidence, reasoning | assesses | Students gather information from an audit, a reference table, town facts and a vendor flyer about two synthetic cup materials (PET from petroleum and PLA from corn), judge which claims are supported, and write an evidence-based argument about the material's impact on their town. The information is qualitative, within the assessment boundary. |
| Ch. 15 | W7 · Fixing Marcus's Study Guide: Nine Claims About Synthetic Materials Error analysis | practice | Each statement is a common misunderstanding about where synthetic materials come from or how they affect society and the environment. Diagnosing and rewriting them sharpens the sense-making the PE requires without producing new information-gathering evidence. |
| Ch. 15 | W8 · Who Says So? A Jigsaw on Sources, Origins and Impacts of Four Materials Collaborative investigation | assesses | Groups read twelve cards from different kinds of sources about polyester, corn ethanol, sucralose and PLA, record the natural resource, chemical process, benefit and cost for each material, and rate each source's credibility with reasons. This is the obtaining-and-evaluating-information practice the PE names, with qualitative products. |
| Ch. 15 | W9 · The Sixty-Thousand-Fork Problem: Choosing a Material for the Cafeteria Transfer and design | practice | Each option is traced to its natural resource (petroleum, corn, trees, ores) and its impact on the school's waste streams, so the decision depends on the origin-and-impact information this PE is about. |
| Ch. 15 | W10 · Chemical Engineering and Society: Mastery Check Retrieval and mastery check | assesses | The retrieval items check the resource-to-material trace, the meaning of synthetic, the structure-property link and the benefits and costs of fuels, foods, medicines and plastics; the synthesis asks for a written explanation of a synthetic material's origin and impacts. All answers are qualitative or involve simple arithmetic, within the assessment boundary. |
Labs (3)
| Chapter | Lab | Role | How it connects |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ch. 15 | Lab 1 · Six Unlabeled Swatches: Which Ones Did Nature Make? Evidence-based mystery | practice | Students gather first-hand information about the properties of synthetic and natural fibers, then connect each synthetic swatch to the natural resource and chemical process it came from and to the property it was engineered to have. The PE itself is assessed through source-based work in W3, W8 and Lab 2; this lab builds the property evidence those sources talk about. |
| Ch. 15 | Lab 2 · The Spring Fair Cup Decision: Score It, Then Defend It Data-driven decision | assesses | Students gather information from several sources about the natural resources each cup comes from, the chemical processes involved, and the effects on people and the environment, judge the credibility of the sources, and describe their reasoning in words. No life-cycle numbers are computed, so the assessment boundary is respected. |
| Ch. 15 | Lab 3 · Design a Produce Bag: Criteria First, Then Build and Revise Engineering design challenge | practice | The material fact cards give the natural resource, process and local end-of-life fate of each candidate; students must use that information in the design, which connects the engineering strand to the lesson's core idea that synthetic materials come from natural resources and affect society. |