What science concepts and skills are defined by the benchmarks
and indicators of the Ohio Academic Content Standards (OACS)?
The content in each grade band builds upon the knowledge and skills of the previous
grade bands. Teachers who are familiar with this progression can better help students
make connections to prior knowledge and prepare them for future learning. In addition,
the content assigned to each grade level builds to the overarching concept described
in the benchmark.
The following tools help teacher teams explore the key concepts in each benchmark and
examine the role of each grade level in helping students achieve understanding of the
benchmark-level concepts.
Ohio Science Matrix
The Ohio Science Matrix tool provides background information and explanations aligned to
Ohio’s Academic Content Standards in Science. The matrix, organized by benchmarks, has
three sections.
The first section, Ohio’s Benchmark, lists the benchmark and its associated indicators.
The second section, Implications for Instruction, provides clear, concise information in
the following four categories:
Clarification for Instruction;
Connections to Other Benchmarks;
Connections to the Previous Grade Bands;
Connections to the Next Grade Bands.
This information may serve as guidance for teachers and may reference terms or resources not
explicitly stated in the benchmarks or grade-level indicators. It provides relevant
grade-band-appropriate information for classroom teachers on the benchmarks and indicators.
The third section, Teacher Background, provides background on the content covered in the benchmarks
in Ohio’s Academic Content Standards for Science. The resources in this section provide informative,
grade-band-appropriate content explanations for classroom teachers. By following the links, users can
access supporting materials from several national science standards-based documents. (It may be
necessary to use the section headers and page numbers given in order to access the appropriate portion
of the document or Web site.)
As teams of teachers explore the national documents, they can discuss their answers to the following questions:
What do I already know about this benchmark?
What can I learn about this benchmark from the national documents?
What are the key concepts that students must master to achieve the understanding in this benchmark?
Note: Some of the content found in the national documents goes beyond the scope of what
students are expected to know and do according to Ohio standards. However, these references offer
a framework for understanding the benchmarks and grade-level indicators of the Ohio standards, as
well as resources that are not in the Ohio standards.
