Use these targets, vocabulary, rubrics, examples, and score sheet with the instructor's approved lesson and procedure. This is an assessment companion, not a complete lesson or safety authorization.
Student lessons, data, and worked answers: Unit 07 learning pathway.
The student demonstrates the following:
Five science criteria plus separately reported integration (Page 3).
Inflate a balloon or bake raisin bread to show every point receding.
The student corrects the “explosion in space” picture (Page 4).
Model results, CMB reasoning, and the age estimate kept distinct.
You are making a decision, not adding up points. For each criterion, decide whether the work is Developing, Proficient, or Mastery — the column language tells you which. A criterion counts as mastered only when the student can both correct the “explosion in space” picture and defend the evidence for an expanding universe. Each student has three tokens per term; each token retries one rubric criterion. Approved accommodations, equipment failures, and approved absences are handled separately and do not consume these tokens.
Accept listed synonyms; use the distinction column to resolve near-matches.
| Canonical answer | Accepted synonyms | Common confusion / discriminator |
|---|---|---|
| Expansion & the Big Bang | ||
| Hubble's law | large-scale recession relation | Use its scale and redshift limits; local bound motion can differ |
| Expansion of space | metric expansion | Space stretches between galaxies — not galaxies flying through fixed space |
| No center, no edge | the “explosion” correction | The Big Bang happened everywhere at once, not at one point |
| Redshift | cosmological redshift | Stretched light from receding galaxies; grows with distance |
| Evidence, age & fate | ||
| Cosmic microwave background | CMB; relic afterglow | Cooled glow of a hot, dense early universe — the key evidence |
| Cosmic age | age from an expansion-history model | Inverse H0 is a timescale, not an exact age; history and cosmological parameters matter |
| Dark energy | accelerating expansion | Unknown cause speeding up expansion; shapes the universe's fate |
| Balloon / raisin-bread model | expansion analogy | Every point recedes from every other; the surface has no center |
| Criterion | Developing | Proficient | Mastery |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hubble's law & expanding space | Cannot interpret the expansion data. | States a trend without units or conditions. | Uses the assigned calibrated-distance and low-redshift models, with units, and distinguishes large-scale expansion from local bound motion. |
| Correcting the “explosion” picture | Pictures the Big Bang as a bomb going off at one point. | Senses the picture is wrong but cannot say why. | Corrects the misconception — the Big Bang was the expansion of space everywhere, not an explosion into pre-existing space. |
| The cosmic microwave background | Knows no evidence for the Big Bang. | Names the CMB but not what it shows. | Explains the cosmic microwave background as the cooled afterglow that evidences a hot, dense early universe. |
| Age of the universe & its fate | Cannot distinguish an age from a rate. | Treats inverse H0 as an exact age. | Interprets an expansion timescale and explains how cosmic history and dark energy affect age and future evolution. |
| Modeling cosmic expansion | Requires a special explosion center. | Uses an analogy without identifying its limits. | Uses an expansion model to compare separations and explains its limits, including why bound objects do not simply expand with it. |
| Integration (cross-domain) | Makes no supported connection between the source and the science. | Uses the source but needs help connecting evidence, writing, or limitations to the science. | Independently connects History, Reading, and Writing using a cited source, appropriate evidence, a limitation, and a scientific explanation. |
The split between Proficient and Mastery is space itself expands: galaxies are not flying through space from a blast site — the space between them stretches. Ask “where was the center of the Big Bang?” The mastered answer is that there isn't one.
Read these before you grade. They show what Mastery and Developing actually sound like, plus the edge cases where you should coach rather than decide on the spot.
Student: ______________________________________ Date: _______________ Guide: _________________________
| # | Criterion | Decision | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hubble's law & expanding space | Dev / Prof / Mast | |
| 2 | Correcting the “explosion” picture | Dev / Prof / Mast | |
| 3 | The cosmic microwave background | Dev / Prof / Mast | |
| 4 | Age of the universe & its fate | Dev / Prof / Mast | |
| 5 | Modeling cosmic expansion | Dev / Prof / Mast | |
| 6 | Integration (cross-domain) | Dev / Prof / Mast |
☐ No ☐ Yes — for criterion: __________
Tokens left this term after this session (choose one): ☐ 3 ☐ 2 ☐ 1 ☐ None left
Dev = Developing · Prof = Proficient · Mast = Mastery · Unsure between two levels? Circle the lower one and note what a re-do would need.