Constructing explanations and designing solutions in 6–8 builds on K–5 experiences and progresses to include constructing explanations and designing solutions supported by multiple sources of evidence consistent with scientific ideas, principles, and theories.

• Undertake a design project, engaging in the design cycle, to construct and/or implement a solution that meets specific design criteria and constraints.
• Apply scientific ideas or principles to design an object, tool, process or system.
• Apply scientific ideas or principles to design, construct, and test a design of an object, tool, process or system.
• Construct an explanation that includes qualitative or quantitative relationships between variables that predict phenomena.
• Apply scientific ideas to construct an explanation for real-world phenomena, examples, or events.
• Construct an explanation that includes qualitative or quantitative relationships between variables that describe phenomena.
• Construct a scientific explanation based on valid and reliable evidence obtained from sources (including the students’ own experiments) and the assumption that theories and laws that describe the natural world operate today as they did in the past and will continue to do so in the future.
• Apply scientific principles to design an object, tool, process or system.