Concept Taxonomy — Grade 6-8¶
This band introduces an eighth category not present in the K-5 bands: Substance Use Awareness and Prevention (SUB), a wholly new strand at Grade 6-8. The Human Growth and Development category is renamed GROW (Human Growth, Development, and Sexual Health) to reflect the addition of Sexual Health content at this band. Skill Standards (SKIL) remains a single category because, at 25 of 133 concepts (18.8%), it stays comfortably under the 30% balance ceiling even though its raw benchmark count (19) is the largest Skill Standards set in the series so far.
| Category | TaxonomyID | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Foundations | FOUND | Bridging/anchor concepts carried forward from earlier bands that connect concepts across strands (e.g., "Health"). |
| Food and Nutrition | FOOD | Dietary guidelines, food labels and marketing claims, drink choices, meal/snack planning, and food sovereignty/community food access. |
| Human Growth, Development, and Sexual Health | GROW | Relationship structures and characteristics, seeking help about development/relationships, comprehensive health care access, STIs/HIV, pregnancy prevention, healthcare barriers, boundaries, consent, and coercion. |
| Mental and Emotional Health | EMOT | Suicide/self-harm warning signs, stress, emotional distress, empathy and conflict resolution, emotion management, exclusion/bullying/bias effects, media representation, brain health, and dementia. |
| Personal Health and Wellness | WELL | Sleep, fitness/workout planning, emergency medication use and the Heimlich maneuver, emergency recognition and scene safety, and infectious disease prevention. |
| Personal Safety and Violence Prevention | SAFE | Harmful/explicit content sharing, power dynamics and peer pressure, digital communication risk, school safety actions, and consent/coercion in the safety context. |
| Substance Use Awareness and Prevention | SUB | Alcohol, tobacco, nicotine, cannabis, and other drug effects; medication safety; substance use disorder and relapse; impaired driving; industry advertising influence; and cultural/traditional context for substance use. |
| Skill Standards | SKIL | Cross-cutting skills: identifying influences, accessing/evaluating health information, communication, conflict resolution, self-advocacy, refusal skills, decision-making, goal-setting, ownership of health behaviors, and health message design. |
Category Sizing¶
| TaxonomyID | Concept Count | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| FOUND | 1 | 0.8% |
| FOOD | 9 | 6.8% |
| GROW | 20 | 15.0% |
| EMOT | 20 | 15.0% |
| WELL | 15 | 11.3% |
| SAFE | 13 | 9.8% |
| SUB | 30 | 22.6% |
| SKIL | 25 | 18.8% |
| Total | 133 | 100% |
All eight categories are under the 30% ceiling. SUB is the largest category (22.6%) because Substance Use Awareness and Prevention is an entirely new strand at this band with 9 dense benchmarks, each of which bundles several substances/effects and was split into multiple concepts for clarity.