People have different external features, such as the size, shape, and color of hair, skin, and eyes, but they are more like one another than like other animals.
Learning Goal 2
People need water, food, air, waste removal, and a particular range of temperatures in their environment, just as other animals do.
Learning Goal 3
People tend to live in families and communities in which individuals have different roles.
For Grades: 3-5
Learning Goal 1
Unlike in human beings, behavior in insects and many other species is determined almost entirely by biological inheritance.
Learning Goal 2
Human beings have made tools and machines to sense and do things that they could not otherwise sense or do at all, as quickly, or as well.
Learning Goal 3
Artifacts and preserved remains provide some evidence of the physical characteristics and possible behavior of human beings who lived a very long time ago.
Learning Goal 4
Technology has helped people with disabilities survive and live more conventional lives.
For Grades: 6-8
Learning Goal 1
Like other animals, human beings have body systems for obtaining and deriving energy from food and for defense, reproduction, and the coordination of body functions.
Learning Goal 4
Although social behaviors are affected by both genes and environmental factors, human beings are still able to invent, learn, and modify a wide variety of these behaviors.
Learning Goal 5
Human beings use technology to match or exceed many of the abilities of other species.
Learning Goal 6
Technologies having to do with food production, sanitation, and health care have dramatically changed how people live and work and have resulted in rapid increases in the human population.
Learning Goal 7
Like other complex organisms, people vary somewhat in size and shape, skin color, body proportions, body hair, facial features, muscle strength, handedness, and so on. But these differences are minor compared to the overall similarity of all humans, as demonstrated by the fact that people from anywhere in the world can reproduce with each other and donate blood or organs to one another. Humans are indeed a single species. Furthermore, as great as cultural differences between groups of people seem to be, people's complex languages, technologies, and arts unite them as a species distinct from others.
Learning Goal 8
Written records and photographic and electronic devices enable human beings to share, compile, and use great amounts of information.
For Grades: 9-12
Learning Goal 1
The similarity of humans in their cell chemistry and DNA sequences reinforces the idea that all humans are part of a single species.
Learning Goal 3
Fossil and molecular evidence supports the idea that human beings evolved from earlier species.
Subchapter B
Human Development
For Grades: K-2
Learning Goal 1
All kinds of animals have offspring, usually with two parents involved.
Learning Goal 2
A human baby grows inside its mother until its birth. Even after birth, a human baby is unable to care for itself, and its survival depends on the care it receives from adults.
For Grades: 3-5
Learning Goal 1
It takes about nine months for a human to develop inside its mother. The developing baby is nourished by the mother, so substances she takes in will affect how well or poorly the baby develops.
Learning Goal 2
Human beings live longer than most other animals, but all living things die.
Learning Goal 3
In the first few years after birth, most children make remarkable gains in their physical and mental abilities that allow them to interact with others and with their environment.
For Grades: 6-8
Learning Goal 1
Human fertilization occurs when sperm cells from a male's testes are deposited near an egg cell from the female ovary, and one of the sperm cells enters the egg cell.
Learning Goal 2
Contraception measures may incapacitate sperm, block their way to the egg, prevent the release of eggs, or prevent the fertilized egg from implanting successfully.
Learning Goal 4
The developing embryo—and later the newborn infant—is subject to many risks from infection, faults in its genes, its mother's inadequate diet, or her use of cigarettes, alcohol, or other drugs. Inadequate child care may lead to lower physical and mental ability.
Learning Goal 5abc
Various body changes occur as adults age. Muscles and joints become less flexible, bones and muscles lose mass, energy levels diminish, and the senses become less acute. Women stop releasing eggs and hence can no longer reproduce.
Learning Goal 5d
The length and quality of human life are influenced by genes and environmental factors, including sanitation, diet, medical care, and personal health behaviors.
Learning Goal 6
Development sometimes involves dramatic biological changes. For example, puberty involves the maturation of the body to enable reproduction.
Learning Goal 7
Development occurs with somewhat different timing for different individuals.
For Grades: 9-12
Learning Goal 1
As successive generations of an embryo's cells form by division, small differences in their immediate environments cause them to develop slightly differently, by activating or inactivating different parts of the DNA information.
Learning Goal 2
The availability of artificial means to prevent or facilitate pregnancy raises social, moral, ethical, and legal issues.
Learning Goal 3
The complexity of the human brain allows humans to create technological, literary, and artistic works on a vast scale, and to develop a scientific understanding of the world.
Learning Goal 4
The development and use of technologies to sustain, prolong, or terminate life raise social, moral, ethical, and legal issues.
Learning Goal 5
Both genes and environmental factors influence the rate and extent of development.
Learning Goal 6
Following fertilization, cell division produces a small cluster of cells that embeds itself in the wall of the uterus. As the embryo develops, it receives nourishment and eliminates wastes by the transfer of substances between its blood and the blood of its mother.
Learning Goal 7
Patterns of human development are similar to those of other vertebrates.
Subchapter C
Basic Functions
For Grades: K-2
Learning Goal 1
The human body has parts that help it seek, find, and take in food when it feels hunger—eyes and a nose for detecting food, legs to get to it, arms to carry it away, and a mouth to eat it.
Learning Goal 2
Senses can warn individuals about danger; muscles help them to fight, hide, or get out of danger.
Learning Goal 3
The brain enables human beings to think and sends messages to other body parts to help them work properly.
For Grades: 3-5
Learning Goal 1a
From food, people obtain fuel and materials for body repair and growth.
Learning Goal 1b
The indigestible parts of food are eliminated.
Learning Goal 2
By breathing, people take in the oxygen they need to live.
Learning Goal 3
Skin keeps the body from drying out and protects it from harmful substances and germs.
Learning Goal 4
The brain gets signals from all parts of the body telling it what is going on there. The brain also sends signals to parts of the body to influence what they do.
For Grades: 6-8
Learning Goal 1
Organs and organ systems are composed of cells and help to provide all cells with basic needs.
Learning Goal 2
For the body to use food for energy and building materials, the food must first be digested into molecules that are absorbed and transported to cells.
Learning Goal 3
To burn food for the release of energy stored in it, oxygen must be supplied to cells, and carbon dioxide removed. Lungs take in oxygen for the combustion of food and eliminate the carbon dioxide produced. The urinary system disposes of dissolved waste molecules, the intestinal tract removes solid wastes, and the skin and lungs aid in the transfer of thermal energy from the body. The circulatory system moves all these substances to or from cells where they are needed or produced, responding to changing demands.
Learning Goal 4
Specialized cells and the molecules they produce identify and destroy microbes that get inside the body.
Learning Goal 5
Hormones are chemicals from glands that affect other body parts. They are involved in helping the body respond to danger and in regulating human growth, development, and reproduction.
Learning Goal 6
Interactions among the senses, nerves, and brain make possible the learning that enables human beings to predict, analyze, and respond to changes in their environment.
For Grades: 9-12
Learning Goal 1
The immune system functions to protect against microscopic organisms and foreign substances that enter from outside the body and against some cancer cells that arise within.
Learning Goal 3
Communication between cells is required to coordinate their diverse activities. Cells may secrete molecules that spread locally to nearby cells or that are carried in the bloodstream to cells throughout the body. Nerve cells transmit electrochemical signals that carry information much more rapidly than is possible by diffusion or blood flow.
Learning Goal 5
Some drugs mimic or block the molecules involved in communication between cells and therefore affect operations of the brain and body.
Learning Goal 6
The human body is a complex system of cells, most of which are grouped into organ systems that have specialized functions. These systems can best be understood in terms of the essential functions they serve for the organism: deriving energy from food, protection against injury, internal coordination, and reproduction.
Subchapter D
Learning
For Grades: K-2
Learning Goal 1
People use their senses to find out about their surroundings and themselves. Different senses give different information.
Learning Goal 2
Some of the things people do, like playing soccer, reading, and writing, must be deliberately learned. Practicing helps people to improve. How well one learns sometimes depends on how one does it and how often and how hard one tries to learn.
Learning Goal 3
People can learn from each other by telling and listening, showing and watching, and imitating what others do.
For Grades: 3-5
Learning Goal 1
Human beings have different interests, motivations, skills, and talents.
Learning Goal 2
Human beings can use the memory of their past experiences to make judgments about new situations.
Learning Goal 3
Many skills can be practiced until they become automatic. If the right skills are practiced, performance may improve.
Learning Goal 4
Human beings tend to repeat behaviors that feel good or have pleasant consequences and avoid behaviors that feel bad or have unpleasant consequences.
Learning Goal 5
Learning means using what one already knows to make sense out of new experiences or information, not just storing the new information in one's head.
For Grades: 6-8
Learning Goal 1a
Some animal species are limited to a repertoire of genetically determined behaviors; others have more complex brains and can learn and modify a wide variety of behaviors.
Learning Goal 1b
All behavior is affected by both inheritance and experience.
Learning Goal 2
The level of skill a person can reach in any particular activity depends on innate abilities, the amount of practice, and the use of appropriate learning technologies.
Learning Goal 3
Human beings can detect a tremendous range of visual and olfactory stimuli. The strongest stimulus they can tolerate may be more than a trillion times as intense as the weakest they can detect. Still, there are many kinds of signals in the world that people cannot detect directly.
Learning Goal 4
Attending closely to any one input of information usually reduces the ability to attend to others at the same time.
Learning Goal 5
Learning often results from two perceptions or actions occurring at about the same time. The more often the same combination occurs, the stronger the mental connection between them is likely to be. Occasionally a single vivid experience will connect two things permanently in people's minds.
Learning Goal 6
Language and tools enable human beings to learn complicated and varied things from others.
For Grades: 9-12
Learning Goal 1
Even instinctive behavior may not develop well if the individual is exposed to abnormal conditions.
Learning Goal 2ab
The expectations, moods, and prior experiences of human beings can affect how they interpret new perceptions or ideas. People tend to ignore evidence that challenges their beliefs and to accept evidence that supports them.
Learning Goal 2c
The context in which something is learned may limit the contexts in which the learning can be used.
Learning Goal 3
Human thinking involves the interaction of ideas, and ideas about ideas. People can produce many associations internally without receiving information from their senses.
Subchapter E
Physical Health
For Grades: K-2
Learning Goal 1
Eating a variety of healthful foods and getting enough exercise and rest help people to stay healthy.
Learning Goal 2
Some things people take into their bodies from the environment can hurt them.
Learning Goal 3
Some diseases are caused by germs, some are not. Diseases caused by germs may be spread by people who have them. Washing one's hands with soap and water reduces the number of germs that can get into the body or that can be passed on to other people.
For Grades: 3-5
Learning Goal 1a
Food provides fuel and materials for growth and repair of body parts.
Learning Goal 1b
Vitamins and minerals, present in small amounts in foods, are essential to keep everything working well.
Learning Goal 1c
As people grow up, the amounts and kinds of food and exercise needed by the body may change.
Learning Goal 2
Tobacco, alcohol, other drugs, and certain poisons in the environment—such as pesticides and lead—can harm human beings and other living things.
Learning Goal 3
Some germs may keep the body from working properly. For defense against germs, the human body has tears, saliva, and skin to prevent many germs from getting into the body and special cells to fight germs that do get into the body.
Learning Goal 4
There are some diseases that human beings can catch only once. After they've recovered, they don't get sick from them again. There are many diseases that can be prevented by injecting people with killed or weakened germs so that people don't catch the diseases even once.
For Grades: 6-8
Learning Goal 1a
The amount of food energy (calories) a person requires varies with body weight, age, sex, activity level, and natural body efficiency.
Learning Goal 1b
Regular exercise is important to maintain a healthy heart/lung system, good muscle tone, and bone strength.
Learning Goal 2
Toxic substances, some dietary habits, and some personal behavior may be bad for one's health. Some effects show up right away, others years later. Avoiding toxic substances, such as tobacco, and changing dietary habits increase the chance of living longer.
Learning Goal 3
Viruses, bacteria, fungi, and parasites may infect the human body and interfere with normal body functions. A person can catch a cold many times because there are many varieties of cold viruses that cause similar symptoms.
Learning Goal 4
White blood cells engulf invaders or produce antibodies that attack them or mark them for killing by other white cells. The antibodies produced will remain and can fight off subsequent invaders of the same kind.
Learning Goal 5
The environment may contain dangerous levels of substances that are harmful to human beings. Therefore, the good health of individuals requires monitoring the soil, air, and water and taking steps to make them safe.
Learning Goal 6
Specific kinds of germs cause specific diseases.
Learning Goal 7
Vaccines induce the body to build immunity to a disease without actually causing the disease itself.
For Grades: 9-12
Learning Goal 1
Some allergic reactions are caused by the body's immune responses to usually harmless environmental substances. Sometimes the immune system may attack some of the body's own cells.
Learning Goal 2
Faulty genes can cause body parts or systems to work poorly. Some genetic diseases appear only when an individual has inherited a certain faulty gene from both parents.
Learning Goal 3a
New medical techniques, efficient health care delivery systems, improved diet and sanitation, and a fuller understanding of the nature of health and disease give today's human beings a better chance of staying healthy than their ancestors had.
Learning Goal 3b
Conditions now are very different from the conditions in which the species evolved. But some of the differences may not be good for human health.
Learning Goal 4
Some viral diseases, such as AIDS, destroy critical cells of the immune system, leaving the body unable to deal with multiple infection agents and cancerous cells.
Subchapter F
Mental Health
For Grades: K-2
Learning Goal 1
People have many different feelings—sadness, joy, anger, fear, etc.—about events, themselves, and other people.
Learning Goal 2
People react to personal problems in different ways. Some ways are more likely to be helpful than others.
Learning Goal 3
Talking to someone may help people understand their feelings or problems and what to do about them.
For Grades: 3-5
Learning Goal 1
Different individuals handle their feelings differently, and can have different feelings in the same situation.
Learning Goal 2
Often human beings don't understand why others act the way they do, and sometimes they don't understand their own behavior and feelings.
Learning Goal 3
Physical health can affect people's emotional well-being. Likewise, emotional well-being can affect physical health.
Learning Goal 4
One way to respond to a strong feeling, either pleasant or unpleasant, is to think about what caused it and then consider whether to seek out or avoid similar situations.
For Grades: 6-8
Learning Goal 1a
Individuals differ greatly in their ability to cope with stressful situations.
Learning Goal 1b
Both external and internal conditions (chemistry, personal history, values) influence how people behave.
Learning Goal 2a
People may react to mental distress by denying they have any problems.
Learning Goal 2b
With help people can sometimes uncover the reasons for their feelings.
For Grades: 9-12
Learning Goal 1
Stresses are especially difficult for children to deal with and may have long-lasting effects.
Learning Goal 2
Biological abnormalities, such as brain injuries or chemical imbalances, can cause or increase susceptability to psychological disturbances.
Learning Goal 3
Reactions of other people to an individual's emotional disturbance may increase its effects.
Learning Goal 4
Human beings differ greatly in how they cope with emotions and may therefore puzzle one another.
Learning Goal 5
Ideas about what constitutes good mental health and proper treatment for abnormal mental states vary from one culture to another and from one time period to another.
Learning Goal 6
Psychological distress may also affect an individual's vulnerability to biological disease.
Learning Goal 7
According to some theories of mental disturbance, anger, fear, or depression may result from exceptionally upsetting thoughts or memories that are blocked from becoming conscious.
