Cells and Systems Grades 6 to 8

Free online life-science course · 12 weeks

Grade: Grades 6 to 8
Ages: Ages 11 to 14
Price: Free
Format: Self-paced online course at learn.lanternlearn.com

About this course

Cells and Systems Grades 6 to 8 is a free 12-week online life-science course for middle schoolers that uses only things a family already has. Students set up a windowsill lab at home and sort living from non-living, watch single cells make gas, build a cell model, compare plant and animal cells, count their pulse and breaths to follow cells to tissues to organs to systems, test reaction time and memory, trap a leaf in the dark, model food being taken apart and rebuilt, grow seeds in light and dark, and study flowers, seeds and nests. The course ends with a growing station the student designs, builds, tests and improves.

Skills covered

· Give evidence that living things are made of one cell or many cells and tell living things from non-living things
· Describe a cell as a working system and the jobs of the nucleus, membrane, mitochondria, chloroplasts and cell wall
· Explain how cells form tissues, tissues form organs, and body systems work together, using your own pulse and breathing data
· Describe how senses send signals to the brain for quick action or memory, using a reaction-time test
· Trace matter and energy through photosynthesis and through food that is taken apart and rebuilt in the body
· Explain how environment and inheritance shape growth, how living things make more of themselves, and design a growing station from criteria and constraints
· NGSS: MS-LS1-1, MS-LS1-2, MS-LS1-3, MS-LS1-4, MS-LS1-5, MS-LS1-6, MS-LS1-7, MS-LS1-8, MS-ETS1-1

12-week list

Each week has short lessons Monday to Friday, a hands-on Windowsill Lab, and a Nature Day with the family on Saturday.

Week	Topic	Focus	NGSS
1	Living or Not	What every living thing does, and planting the course seeds	MS-LS1-1
2	One Cell or Many	Yeast in a jar makes a balloon rise	MS-LS1-1
3	Inside a Cell	A bag-of-water cell model and what each part does	MS-LS1-2
4	Plant Cells Have More	Cell walls, chloroplasts and celery in tinted water	MS-LS1-2
5	Cells to Tissues to Organs	Your pulse at rest and after twenty jumps	MS-LS1-3
6	Systems Work Together	Why breaths and heartbeats rise together after a run	MS-LS1-3
7	Senses and Signals	A ruler-drop reaction test and a memory game	MS-LS1-8
8	Plants Make Food	A leaf kept in the dark for a week	MS-LS1-6
9	Food Becomes You	A paper chain taken apart and rebuilt	MS-LS1-7
10	Growing Up: Environment and Inheritance	Sprouts grown in light and in the dark	MS-LS1-5
11	Making More	Flowers, seeds that travel, nests and herds	MS-LS1-4
12	Design a Growing Station	Build, test and improve a windowsill growing station	MS-ETS1-1

More in Cells and Systems

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