Scientists use different kinds of investigations depending on the questions they are trying to answer. Types of investigations include describing objects, events and organisms; classifying them; and doing a fair test (experimenting).

• Earth and Space: Changes in the Earth and Sky - stream table

• Physical Science: Position and Motion of Objects - Forces

Current scientific knowledge and understanding guide scientific investigations. Different scientific domains employ different methods, core theories and standards to advance scientific knowledge and understanding.

• Use examples of different investigations, compare methods used and analyze how these methods advanced scientific knowledge.

Scientific explanations emphasize evidence, have logically consistent arguments, and use scientific principles, models and theories. The scientific community accepts and uses such explanations until displaced by better scientific ones. When such displacement occurs, science advances.

• Analyze a fairly recent scientific explanation that supplanted another scientific explanation. Give reasons for this new explanation.