Life science
Cells & body systems
How do specialized cells, tissues, and organ systems work together to sustain living organisms?
Explore system models →GENIUS LEARNING CENTER · GRADE 7 SCIENCE
Observe systems. Discover connections.
Science helps us explain how parts work together.
Explore living systems, ecosystems, energy, and a changing Earth. Practice turning observations into scientific explanations supported by evidence.
Find your starting point
Four pathways into Grade 7 science.
Explore the big ideas that connect scientific phenomena. Topics are learning pathways, not a promise of an identical sequence in every NYC classroom.
Ecosystems
Food webs & populations
Trace relationships among producers, consumers, decomposers, and environmental conditions.
Try an ecosystem question →Energy
Energy transfer
Use evidence to understand how energy moves and changes form in familiar systems.
Make an explanatory model →Earth & environment
Changing environments
Investigate how natural events and human activities can affect habitats and resources.
Explore local examples →Scientific practices
Build explanations with evidence.
A scientific model helps us represent relationships, make predictions, and revise explanations when new evidence appears.
Model
Identify the system.
Name its parts, boundaries, and interactions. What might be left out of your model?
Predict
Consider a change.
Use the model to predict how one change may affect other parts of the system.
Explain
Support your claim.
Connect evidence to your prediction and revise your reasoning when observations disagree.
GENIUS PRACTICE · GRADE 7 SCIENCE
Check your scientific thinking.
In a meadow, grasses are eaten by rabbits, and rabbits are eaten by foxes. One year, a disease greatly reduces the rabbit population. Scientists are studying how this change could affect the meadow food web.
Producer
Grass
Plants capture energy from sunlight and form the base of this simplified food chain.
Primary consumer
Rabbit
Rabbits obtain energy by feeding on grass and provide food for some predators.
Predator
Fox
Foxes in this model depend partly on rabbits as a food source.
Choose the best answer
Which prediction is most directly supported by this simplified food-web model?
Choose an answer to check your thinking.
Real ecosystems have multiple food sources and interactions. A food-web model simplifies those relationships to help us reason about possible changes.
For families
Connect science to the world around you.
Observe
Spot local systems.
Look for interactions among plants, insects, birds, and changing conditions in a nearby green space.
Discuss
Ask what could change.
What might happen if a food or water source becomes more or less available?
Explain
Separate evidence from guesses.
Ask which observations support a claim and which questions still need investigation.
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