Page 14 - Science - Grade 9, DE-STREAMED COURSE (SNC1W)

Note: For students who completed any of the Grade 9 science courses prior to September 2022, refer to the prerequisite chart on page 13 of The Ontario Curriculum, Grades 9 and 10: Science, 2008.
Half-Credit Courses
The course outlined in this curriculum is designed to be offered as a full-credit course. However, it may also be delivered as two half-credit courses. Half-credit courses, which require a minimum of fifty-five hours of scheduled instructional time, must adhere to the following conditions:
• The two half-credit courses created from a full course must together contain all of the expectations of the full course.
• Students must successfully complete both parts of the course if it is to be used as a prerequisite for another course.
• The title of each half-credit course must include the designation Part 1 or Part 2. A half credit (0.5) will be recorded in the credit-value column of both the report card and the Ontario Student Transcript.
Boards will report all half-credit courses to the ministry annually in the School October Report.
Curriculum Expectations
The Ontario Curriculum, Grade 9: Science, 2022 identifies the expectations for the course and describes the skills and knowledge that students are expected to acquire, demonstrate, and apply in their class work and investigations, and in various other activities on which their achievement is assessed and evaluated.
Mandatory learning is described in the overall and specific expectations of the curriculum.
Two sets of expectations – overall expectations and specific expectations – are listed for each strand, or broad area of the curriculum, in Grade 9 science. The strands include Strand A: STEM Skills, Careers, and Connections and four other strands, lettered B, C, D and E. Taken together, the overall and specific expectations represent the mandated curriculum.
The overall expectations describe in general terms the skills and knowledge that students are expected to demonstrate by the end of the course. The specific expectations describe the expected skills and knowledge in greater detail. The specific expectations are organized under numbered subheadings, each of which indicates the strand and the overall expectation to which the group of specific expectations corresponds (e.g., “B2” indicates that the group relates to overall expectation 2 in Strand B). This organization is not meant to imply that the expectations in any one group are achieved independently of the expectations in the other groups, nor is it intended to imply that the learning associated with the expectations happens in a linear, sequential way. The numbered headings are used merely as an organizational structure to help teachers focus on particular aspects of knowledge, concepts, and skills as they develop various lessons and learning activities for students.
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