Northstar Worksheets

Learning Objectives

• Explain how air mass movement and pressure changes relate to weather conditions such as wind, temperature, humidity, and precipitation.
• Describe how fronts and cyclones form and how frontogenesis and cyclogenesis affect observable weather patterns.
• Use observational tools (surface pressure maps, temperature gradients, radiosonde profiles, and Doppler radar) to support interpretations of weather events.

Learning Objectives

• Describe the water cycle using evaporation, condensation, precipitation, infiltration, runoff, and groundwater flow.
• Explain how sunlight and gravity drive movement of water on land and through the atmosphere.
• Connect hydrologic cycling to weathering and landscape changes such as river incision, karst formation, and coastal erosion.+ Show more

Learning Objectives

• Explain how seafloor spreading and magnetic striping provide evidence for plate motion.
• Describe how subduction, rifting, and continental collision form landforms and rocks.
• Use paleomagnetic and continental-fit evidence to reconstruct past plate positions.+ Show more

Learning Objectives

• Interpret simple natural hazard data to describe patterns in time and space.
• Explain how different evidence sources (fault maps, eruption histories, tsunami records) support hazard recurrence estimates.
• Distinguish between short-term events and long-term geologic change when evaluating hazard risk.

Learning Objectives

• Model how Earth’s materials cycle through rock, weathering, transport, and deposition processes.
• Explain how Earth’s internal heat and gravitational potential energy drive changes in the geosphere.
• Describe how interactions between the geosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere can change Earth’s surface.

Learning Objectives

• Explain how unequal solar heating and Earth’s rotation drive atmospheric circulation cells (Hadley, Ferrel, and polar).
• Describe how the Coriolis effect influences wind direction and helps create trade winds and westerlies.
• Connect major ocean gyres and heat transport to regional climates and multi-year variability such as El Niño–Southern Oscillation.+ Show more

Learning Objectives

• Explain how multiple organ systems work together to maintain homeostasis.
• Describe feedback mechanisms and how they help keep internal conditions stable.
• Use key vocabulary from circulatory, respiratory, digestive, nervous, and endocrine systems.

Learning Objectives

• Describe the major parts of cells and explain what each part does.
• Compare prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells based on their internal structures.
• Relate organelles to functions such as energy transformation and information storage.+ Show more

Learning Objectives

• Explain how models show structure-function relationships in cells.
• Use models to describe how diffusion and osmosis support cell survival.
• Connect organelle roles to energy transfer in cell processes.+ Show more

Learning Objectives

• Explain equilibrium as the condition where the net force is zero.
• Differentiate static equilibrium from dynamic equilibrium using acceleration and motion.
• Identify examples of balanced forces, including normal and gravitational forces and tension.+ Show more

Learning Objectives

• Describe how pharyngeal pouches and limb buds develop early in vertebrates and why they can be evolutionarily informative
• Compare embryonic development across taxa using evidence from developmental timing and patterning
• Explain how conserved developmental stages can support reconstruction of phylogenetic relationships

Learning Objectives

• Explain how homologous and analogous structures provide evidence for evolution
• Use comparative anatomical features (limb bones, skull shape, vestigial organs) to infer evolutionary relationships
• Connect morphological comparisons with basic genetics and paleontology evidence to support phylogenetic ideas

Learning Objectives

• Explain how potential energy depends on an object’s position or arrangement in a system
• Compare gravitational, elastic, and magnetic potential energy using real-world examples
• Describe how changes in configuration can transform stored energy into motion or work

Learning Objectives

• Explain how kinetic energy depends on mass and speed
• Interpret proportional patterns in kinetic energy graphs
• Relate stored potential energy to future motion through energy conversion

Learning Objectives

• Identify the main mechanisms of heat transfer: conduction, convection, and radiation.
• Explain how heat transfer relates to temperature change and the movement of thermal energy.
• Use examples (spoon in hot liquid, air currents, a lamp, and an electrical circuit) to match evidence to the correct mode of heat flow.

Learning Objectives

• Identify major organelles in eukaryotic cells and describe their functions in cell processes such as transport and synthesis.
• Explain how cell compartments (membranes) help maintain specialized conditions for different activities.
• Compare structural features of plant and animal cells and relate those features to their functions.

Learning Objectives

• Explain how devices convert energy from one form to another using energy transfer and conservation ideas
• Describe unavoidable thermal (heat) losses and relate them to efficiency in real systems
• Complete and interpret simple energy accounting across a transformation sequence

Learning Objectives

• Use energy bookkeeping to track how motion energy changes when energy is transferred into or out of an object.
• Explain qualitatively how braking, collisions, and bouncing involve redistribution of energy, including transfers to thermal and sound energy.
• Calculate and interpret simple quantitative energy changes related to speed and energy transfer.

Learning Objectives

• Use probability to predict genotype and phenotype proportions from monohybrid crosses.
• Interpret Punnett square outcomes as equally likely events and connect them to expected ratios.
• Explain how larger populations tend to match predicted ratios more closely than small populations.+ Show more

Learning Objectives

• Explain how phenotype can result from interactions between genes and environmental factors.
• Identify examples where nutrition, ultraviolet light, or temperature influence visible traits.
• Distinguish inherited genetic contributions from environmental modulation of traits.

Learning Objectives

• Explain how DNA forms genes and how genes influence observable traits.
• Describe how DNA is organized into chromosomes inside cells.
• Model how chromosomes are segregated during gamete formation and recombined at fertilization.

Learning Objectives

• Use models to predict how alternative design solutions will behave.
• Compare solutions using consistent metrics such as performance, cost, durability, and manufacturability.
• Identify and quantify trade-offs between competing design choices.+ Show more

Learning Objectives

• Define a design problem using clear criteria for success and measurable constraints.
• Translate real-world needs (societal, environmental, and safety) into quantitative targets and acceptable limits.
• Distinguish between criteria (what success looks like) and constraints (what limits the design).+ Show more

Learning Objectives

• Explain how engineers use test data and models to refine design parameters under real-world constraints.
• Use quantitative comparisons to justify design changes that improve performance.
• Describe the iterative process of testing, recalibrating predictions, and re-testing to optimize results.