The 155 competencies set for Grade 10 Science, and every one has lessons behind it.
Reliability, Uncertainty, Models, and Engineering Systems
30 competencies
Calculate and interpret appropriate statistical summaries, including mean, median, range, interquartile range, percentage change, and proportional comparisons.
Select and interpret bar graphs, line graphs, scatter plots, histograms, box-style summaries where supported, and error representations appropriate to the data.
Use distributions and variation to compare datasets rather than relying only on one average.
Represent measurement or model uncertainty through ranges, percentage uncertainty, repeated-result spread, error bars, or confidence language without formal inferential statistics.
Evaluate a model by comparing predictions with observations across several conditions.
Distinguish model-parameter uncertainty, measurement uncertainty, natural variability, and structural model limitations.
Use evidence from several methods or sources to evaluate a causal explanation.
Evaluate scientific claims for data quality, statistical presentation, study design, replication, conflicts of interest, uncertainty, and consistency with established evidence.
Revise a scientific model or limit its stated range of application when it fails to match evidence.
Define a systems-engineering problem using measurable performance, reliability, safety, environmental, access, and user requirements.
Develop a system model identifying components, control processes, feedback, inputs, outputs, disturbances, and failure modes.
Use data, mathematical relationships, sensors, and simulations to test system performance.
Evaluate reliability and safety using repeated testing, stress conditions, component failure, and uncertainty.
Improve system control, efficiency, robustness, accessibility, or environmental performance using evidence.
Compare technologies using life-cycle impacts, cost, benefit, risk, uncertainty, and distribution of effects.
Evaluate ethical issues involving automation, environmental impact, health technology, data, access, and affected communities.
Communicate a recommendation that separates scientific evidence, engineering performance, ethical judgment, and policy choice.
Evaluate misinformation through source tracing, evidence quality, statistical presentation, mechanism, replication, and expert consensus.
Identify cherry-picking, misleading graphs, false causation, unsupported certainty, false balance, and misuse of uncertainty.
Compare evidence from primary studies, reviews, official monitoring, models, and expert assessments.
Explain why scientific conclusions may be strong even when uncertainty remains.
Analyze environmental, health, and technology decisions through effects across several systems and populations.
Distinguish what evidence indicates from what different ethical or political frameworks recommend.
Communicate a scientifically defensible judgment while acknowledging uncertainty, trade-offs, and reasonable value disagreement.
Evaluate whether a method measures what it is intended to measure and therefore supports a valid conclusion.
Evaluate reliability using repeated measurements, consistency across trials, sample size, replication, and method transparency.
Evaluate precision and accuracy through instrument resolution, calibration, measurement spread, and comparison with accepted or reference values.
Estimate or describe measurement and percentage uncertainty where mathematically appropriate.
Distinguish anomalous results from ordinary variation and document justified decisions about inclusion, exclusion, or remeasurement.
Improve an investigation in response to evidence about bias, error, risk, control, sample, or model–data disagreement.
Solutions, Concentration, Acids, Bases, and Chemical Behavior
20 competencies
Distinguish solute, solvent, solution, and concentration.
Calculate concentration using mass per unit volume.
Calculate molar concentration using moles per unit volume.
Convert among mass, moles, volume, and concentration in straightforward solution problems.
Apply a dilution relationship to calculate the concentration or volume of a diluted solution.
Explain solubility, saturation, and crystallization using particle interactions and temperature.
Interpret solubility curves and determine whether a solution is unsaturated, saturated, or capable of crystallizing excess solute.
Explain electrical conductivity in aqueous solutions through mobile ions.
Define acids and bases through introductory hydrogen-ion and hydroxide-ion behavior in aqueous solution.
Interpret pH as a scale describing acidity and alkalinity.
Use indicators or sensors to classify and compare acidic, neutral, and alkaline solutions.
Explain neutralization as reaction between acid and base producing salt and water in appropriate cases.
Write and interpret word and simple symbolic equations for neutralization and selected acid reactions.
Use titration data to determine an unknown concentration in straightforward one-to-one reaction contexts.
Evaluate reliability using repeated measurements, consistency across trials, sample size, replication, and method transparency.
Evaluate precision and accuracy through instrument resolution, calibration, measurement spread, and comparison with accepted or reference values.
Estimate or describe measurement and percentage uncertainty where mathematically appropriate.
Distinguish anomalous results from ordinary variation and document justified decisions about inclusion, exclusion, or remeasurement.
Improve an investigation in response to evidence about bias, error, risk, control, sample, or model–data disagreement.
Communicate conclusions using a level of confidence proportionate to the reliability, validity, precision, and uncertainty of the evidence.
Product Prediction, Thermochemistry, Reaction Rates, and Chemical Engineering
27 competencies
Predict products of selected synthesis, decomposition, combustion, displacement, precipitation, and acid reactions using supplied patterns and reference information.
Use reactivity evidence to predict whether selected displacement reactions will occur.
Use solubility information to predict selected precipitation reactions.
Distinguish exothermic and endothermic reactions through energy transfer between system and surroundings.
Interpret reaction-energy profiles and identify activation energy and overall energy change.
Calculate thermal-energy change using mass, specific heat capacity, and temperature change in simple calorimetry.
Estimate reaction-energy change from simple experimental calorimetry data.
Explain reaction rate through collision frequency, collision energy, and suitable orientation at a conceptual level.
Explain how concentration, pressure, temperature, surface area, and catalysts affect reaction rate.
Interpret reaction-rate graphs and calculate an average reaction rate from supplied data.
Explain that catalysts provide an alternative reaction pathway with lower activation energy and are not consumed overall.
Evaluate a chemical process through yield, rate, energy demand, safety, waste, material use, and cost without introducing equilibrium optimization.
Define a systems-engineering problem using measurable performance, reliability, safety, environmental, access, and user requirements.
Develop a system model identifying components, control processes, feedback, inputs, outputs, disturbances, and failure modes.
Use data, mathematical relationships, sensors, and simulations to test system performance.
Evaluate reliability and safety using repeated testing, stress conditions, component failure, and uncertainty.
Improve system control, efficiency, robustness, accessibility, or environmental performance using evidence.
Compare technologies using life-cycle impacts, cost, benefit, risk, uncertainty, and distribution of effects.
Evaluate ethical issues involving automation, environmental impact, health technology, data, access, and affected communities.
Communicate a recommendation that separates scientific evidence, engineering performance, ethical judgment, and policy choice.
Evaluate whether a method measures what it is intended to measure and therefore supports a valid conclusion.
Evaluate reliability using repeated measurements, consistency across trials, sample size, replication, and method transparency.
Evaluate precision and accuracy through instrument resolution, calibration, measurement spread, and comparison with accepted or reference values.
Estimate or describe measurement and percentage uncertainty where mathematically appropriate.
Distinguish anomalous results from ordinary variation and document justified decisions about inclusion, exclusion, or remeasurement.
Improve an investigation in response to evidence about bias, error, risk, control, sample, or model–data disagreement.
Communicate conclusions using a level of confidence proportionate to the reliability, validity, precision, and uncertainty of the evidence.
Momentum, Collisions, Thermal Energy, and Mechanical Systems
33 competencies
Define a systems-engineering problem using measurable performance, reliability, safety, environmental, access, and user requirements.
Develop a system model identifying components, control processes, feedback, inputs, outputs, disturbances, and failure modes.
Use data, mathematical relationships, sensors, and simulations to test system performance.
Evaluate reliability and safety using repeated testing, stress conditions, component failure, and uncertainty.
Improve system control, efficiency, robustness, accessibility, or environmental performance using evidence.
Compare technologies using life-cycle impacts, cost, benefit, risk, uncertainty, and distribution of effects.
Evaluate ethical issues involving automation, environmental impact, health technology, data, access, and affected communities.
Communicate a recommendation that separates scientific evidence, engineering performance, ethical judgment, and policy choice.
Calculate momentum as mass multiplied by velocity.
Explain impulse as change in momentum.
Calculate impulse from force and time in straightforward contexts.
Apply conservation of momentum to one-dimensional collisions, explosions, and separations.
Distinguish elastic and inelastic collisions through kinetic-energy behavior.
Analyze collision safety using force, stopping time, impulse, momentum, and energy dispersal.
Explain internal energy as the combined microscopic kinetic and potential energy of particles.
Distinguish temperature, thermal energy transfer, and internal energy.
Calculate energy transferred during temperature change using specific heat capacity.
Explain state change through energy transfer without temperature change during the transition.
Calculate energy transferred during state change using specific latent heat in straightforward contexts.
Analyze heating and cooling curves.
Explain thermal conduction using particle interactions and, in metals, mobile electrons qualitatively.
Explain convection through density differences and fluid movement.
Explain thermal radiation and compare emission and absorption by surfaces.
Evaluate insulation and thermal-system performance quantitatively.
Formulate a scientific question and hypothesis that can be investigated through experiment, observation, modeling, simulation, or secondary data.
Design a method that controls relevant variables, uses an appropriate sample and range, and produces evidence capable of addressing the hypothesis.
Evaluate whether a method measures what it is intended to measure and therefore supports a valid conclusion.
Evaluate reliability using repeated measurements, consistency across trials, sample size, replication, and method transparency.
Evaluate precision and accuracy through instrument resolution, calibration, measurement spread, and comparison with accepted or reference values.
Estimate or describe measurement and percentage uncertainty where mathematically appropriate.
Distinguish anomalous results from ordinary variation and document justified decisions about inclusion, exclusion, or remeasurement.
Improve an investigation in response to evidence about bias, error, risk, control, sample, or model–data disagreement.
Communicate conclusions using a level of confidence proportionate to the reliability, validity, precision, and uncertainty of the evidence.
Applied Waves, Optics, Electricity, Induction, and Power Systems
22 competencies
Define a systems-engineering problem using measurable performance, reliability, safety, environmental, access, and user requirements.
Develop a system model identifying components, control processes, feedback, inputs, outputs, disturbances, and failure modes.
Use data, mathematical relationships, sensors, and simulations to test system performance.
Evaluate reliability and safety using repeated testing, stress conditions, component failure, and uncertainty.
Improve system control, efficiency, robustness, accessibility, or environmental performance using evidence.
Compare technologies using life-cycle impacts, cost, benefit, risk, uncertainty, and distribution of effects.
Evaluate ethical issues involving automation, environmental impact, health technology, data, access, and affected communities.
Communicate a recommendation that separates scientific evidence, engineering performance, ethical judgment, and policy choice.
Apply wave speed, frequency, wavelength, period, amplitude, and intensity relationships in applied contexts.
Apply reflection, refraction, diffraction, and total internal reflection to communication and imaging systems.
Apply the thin-lens relationship in straightforward imaging problems where mathematically appropriate.
Calculate or interpret magnification in simple optical systems.
Explain how sound intensity, frequency range, resonance as limited enrichment, and material interaction affect communication and hearing.
Calculate electrical energy transferred using power and time.
Calculate the operating cost of electrical devices using supplied energy tariffs.
Analyze combined series–parallel circuits at a foundational level.
Explain electrical safety through current, resistance, heating, grounding, insulation, and protective devices.
Analyze energy transfer and efficiency in motors, generators, and electrical systems.
Explain electromagnetic induction through changing magnetic flux qualitatively and through straightforward relationships.
Explain transformer operation qualitatively and use a simple turns-and-voltage relationship where appropriate.
Explain why high-voltage transmission reduces energy loss for a given transmitted power.
Evaluate an electrical or wave-based technology through performance, efficiency, reliability, safety, cost, and environmental effect.
Cell Processes, Metabolism, Plant Transport, and Physiological Regulation
14 competencies
Explain how enzyme-controlled reactions form metabolic pathways.
Explain how cells regulate material exchange through membrane structure, channels, carriers, and active transport at an applied introductory level.
Relate surface-area-to-volume ratio to exchange and cell-size limitations.
Explain the major stages and purposes of aerobic cellular respiration at a foundational level without advanced biochemistry.
Compare aerobic and anaerobic energy release.
Explain the major stages and limiting factors of photosynthesis at a foundational level.
Interpret photosynthesis- and respiration-rate data.
Explain how cell-cycle regulation supports growth, repair, and organism stability.
Explain how loss of cell-cycle control may contribute to abnormal cell growth without clinical diagnosis.
Explain differentiation as cells developing specialized structures and functions.
Explain water and mineral transport through plant roots, xylem, leaves, and transpiration.
Explain translocation of sugars through phloem at a foundational level.
Explain plant responses to light, gravity, water, and touch through growth or movement responses.
Analyze limiting factors affecting plant growth and productivity.
Inheritance Patterns, Mutations, Evolution, Ecology, and Biodiversity
19 competencies
Explain incomplete dominance, codominance, multiple alleles, sex-linked inheritance, and polygenic inheritance at an introductory applied level.
Interpret simple pedigrees without inferring private family health information.
Explain mutation as a change in genetic material.
Distinguish gene mutations from chromosome-level changes at an introductory level.
Explain that mutations may be harmful, neutral, or beneficial depending on context.
Explain how mutation, sexual reproduction, gene flow, genetic drift, and natural selection contribute to genetic variation and evolutionary change.
Explain speciation through isolation, divergence, and reproductive separation.
Construct or interpret introductory phylogenetic trees using shared characteristics or supplied molecular evidence.
Analyze population growth, survivorship, age structure, and limiting factors using quantitative data.
Analyze competition, predation, mutualism, parasitism, disease, and disturbance in community structure.
Analyze productivity, energy transfer, and carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and water cycling quantitatively at a foundational level.
Evaluate biodiversity, conservation, restoration, and resource-management strategies using ecological evidence and uncertainty.
Evaluate misinformation through source tracing, evidence quality, statistical presentation, mechanism, replication, and expert consensus.
Identify cherry-picking, misleading graphs, false causation, unsupported certainty, false balance, and misuse of uncertainty.
Compare evidence from primary studies, reviews, official monitoring, models, and expert assessments.
Explain why scientific conclusions may be strong even when uncertainty remains.
Analyze environmental, health, and technology decisions through effects across several systems and populations.
Distinguish what evidence indicates from what different ethical or political frameworks recommend.
Communicate a scientifically defensible judgment while acknowledging uncertainty, trade-offs, and reasonable value disagreement.
Human Physiology, Reproduction, Immunity, Disease, and Public Health
23 competencies
Explain homeostatic regulation through receptors, control centers, effectors, feedback, and physiological ranges.
Explain kidney function, filtration, selective reabsorption, and osmoregulation at a foundational level.
Explain regulation of blood glucose, temperature, gases, water, and selected ions through interacting body systems.
Explain cardiovascular and respiratory adjustments during activity, rest, altitude, heat, or illness in general physiological terms.
Explain digestive absorption, liver function, nutrient processing, and energy metabolism at an applied foundational level.
Explain nervous-system signaling, reflexes, sensory processing, and motor response at a foundational physiological level.
Explain endocrine regulation through hormones, receptors, target tissues, and negative feedback without advanced molecular signaling.
Explain reproductive hormonal cycles, gamete production, fertilization, implantation, pregnancy, and development biologically.
Explain how genetic, environmental, maternal-health, nutritional, and developmental factors may influence human development.
Explain innate and adaptive immune responses, antibodies, immune memory, vaccination, and immune-system limitations.
Explain antimicrobial resistance through variation, selection, and inappropriate or excessive antimicrobial exposure.
Analyze infectious and noninfectious disease through cause, mechanism, risk, prevention, and population evidence.
Calculate and interpret incidence, prevalence, mortality, relative comparisons, and screening outcomes at a foundational level.
Evaluate sensitivity, specificity, false-positive, and false-negative outcomes conceptually using supplied screening data.
Evaluate prevention and public-health interventions through effectiveness, safety, access, cost, uncertainty, and ethical considerations.
Evaluate nutrition, disease, reproductive-health, mental-health, or public-health claims without diagnosing or prescribing for individuals.
Evaluate misinformation through source tracing, evidence quality, statistical presentation, mechanism, replication, and expert consensus.
Identify cherry-picking, misleading graphs, false causation, unsupported certainty, false balance, and misuse of uncertainty.
Compare evidence from primary studies, reviews, official monitoring, models, and expert assessments.
Explain why scientific conclusions may be strong even when uncertainty remains.
Analyze environmental, health, and technology decisions through effects across several systems and populations.
Distinguish what evidence indicates from what different ethical or political frameworks recommend.
Communicate a scientifically defensible judgment while acknowledging uncertainty, trade-offs, and reasonable value disagreement.
Applied Geology, Earth History, Hazards, Resources, and Environmental Systems
25 competencies
Interpret geological maps and cross-sections containing folds, faults, intrusions, unconformities, and rock units.
Reconstruct tectonic and geological histories using structural, stratigraphic, fossil, and numerical evidence.
Analyze earthquake magnitude, intensity, location, depth, recurrence, exposure, vulnerability, and risk using supplied data.
Analyze volcanic hazards through magma properties, eruption style, location, monitoring, and exposure.
Analyze landslide, coastal, flood, subsidence, and groundwater hazards through Earth-system interactions.
Compare hazard-monitoring, engineering, planning, warning, and preparedness strategies.
Explain the formation and distribution of selected mineral, energy, soil, and water resources through geological processes.
