Synopsis:  Students explore two evaluation issues that should be considered when determining the degree to which a risk management strategy worked; efficiency and offsetting effects.  Students realize the complexity and challenges of carrying out a cost-benefit analysis.  Students also realize that in spite of good intentions, a risk management strategy may create unintended consequences that must be considered when evaluating its effectiveness.

Conceptual and procedural schemes unify science disciplines and provide students with powerful ideas to help them understand the natural world. Because of the underlying principles embodied in this standard, the understandings and abilities described here are repeated in the other content standards.

Inquiry requires that students combine processes and scientific knowledge as they use scientific reasoning and critical thinking to develop their understanding of science. Engaging students in inquiry helps students develop an understanding of scientific concepts, an appreciation of "how we know" what we know in science, an understanding of the nature of science, the skills necessary to become independent inquirers about the natural world, and the dispositions to use the skills, abilities, and attitudes associated with science.

An important purpose of science education is to give students a means to understand and act on personal and social issues. The science in personal and social perspectives standards help students develop decision-making skills.

Students will demonstrate the ability to access valid health information and health-promoting products and services.

Students will demonstrate the ability to practice health-enhancing behaviors and reduce health risks.

Students will analyze the influence of culture, media, technology, and other factors on health.

Students will demonstrate the ability to use interpersonal communication skills to enhance health.

Students will demonstrate the ability to use goal-setting and decision-making skills to enhance health.

Students will demonstrate the ability to advocate for personal, family, and community health.

Understand numbers, ways of representing numbers, relationships among numbers, and number systems.

Understand meanings of operations and how they relate to one another.

Compute fluently and make reasonable estimates.

Build new mathematical knowledge through problem solving.

Solve problems that arise in mathematics and in other contexts.

Apply and adapt a variety of appropriate strategies to solve problems.

Monitor and reflect on the process of mathematical problem solving.

Recognize reasoning and proof as fundamental aspects of mathematics.

Make and investigate mathematical conjectures.

Develop and evaluate mathematical arguments and proofs.

Select and use various types of reasoning and methods of proof.

Organize and consolidate their mathematical thinking through communication.

Communicate their mathematical thinking coherently and clearly to peers, teachers, and others.

Analyze and evaluate the mathematical thinking and strategies of others.

Use the language of mathematics to express mathematical ideas precisely.

Students adjust their use of spoken, written, and visual language (e.g., conventions, style, vocabulary) to communicate effectively with a variety of audiences and for different purposes.

Students conduct research on issues and interests by generating ideas and questions, and by posing problems. They gather, evaluate, and synthesize data from a variety of sources (e.g., print and nonprint texts, artifacts, people) to communicate their discoveries in ways that suit their purpose and audience.

What are civic life, politics, and government?

Effective decision-making requires comparing the additional costs of alternatives with the additional benefits. Most choices involve doing a little more or a little less of something: few choices are "all or nothing" decisions.

Different methods can be used to allocate goods and services. People acting individually or collectively through government, must choose which methods to use to allocate different kinds of goods and services.