Concept Taxonomy — Grade 9-12¶
This band uses the same eight-category scheme established at Grade 6-8. The Human Growth and Development category remains GROW (Human Growth, Development, and Sexual Health), and Substance Use Awareness and Prevention (SUB) continues as its own category. Skill Standards (SKIL) remains a single category because, at 37 of 136 concepts (27.2%), it stays under the 30% balance ceiling, even though its raw benchmark count (20) is the largest Skill Standards set in the series so far and this band's Skill Standards benchmarks are unusually dense (most are single-sentence "Analyze/Evaluate X" statements that still expand to 1-2 concepts each rather than the 2-3 sub-concepts typical of Grade 6-8's compound benchmarks).
| Category | TaxonomyID | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Foundations | FOUND | Bridging/anchor concept carried forward from earlier bands that connects concepts across strands ("Health"). |
| Food and Nutrition | FOOD | Personal nutrition planning, food label and nutrient analysis, beverage evaluation, meal/snack evaluation, cultural food traditions, and food systems/chronic-disease-risk/community initiatives. |
| Human Growth, Development, and Sexual Health | GROW | Relationship structures and characteristics, cultural/historical influences on relationships, dignity and compassion, culturally safe healthcare access, STI prevention/treatment, community-based sexual health programs, boundaries, and consent. |
| Mental and Emotional Health | EMOT | Suicide/self-harm help-seeking, depression and anxiety, supporting peers in crisis, empathy and conflict resolution, Indigenous restorative justice, emotion management, inclusive-environment design, stigma reduction, and brain health/dementia. |
| Personal Health and Wellness | WELL | Sleep and rest, health disparities and systemic inequity, physical activity access and safety, CPR/AED, and behavioral/environmental factors in disease risk and prevention. |
| Personal Safety and Violence Prevention | SAFE | Digital content and social media effects on relationships/boundaries, online threat and emergency response, school safety practices, and consent communication/withdrawal/power dynamics/law. |
| Substance Use Awareness and Prevention | SUB | Effects of substance use on mental health, brain function, physiology, relationships, school/work, and decision-making; coping strategies; tobacco/medication safety; overdose recognition and response; substance use disorder treatment and recovery; and substance-related law, policy, and health disparities. |
| Skill Standards | SKIL | Cross-cutting skills: influences on health practices, evaluating trusted adults and health information, communication and negotiation, refusal skills, health decision-making, goal-setting, adapting health behaviors, and health message design/promotion. |
Category Sizing¶
| TaxonomyID | Concept Count | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| FOUND | 1 | 0.7% |
| FOOD | 10 | 7.4% |
| GROW | 19 | 14.0% |
| EMOT | 21 | 15.4% |
| WELL | 9 | 6.6% |
| SAFE | 10 | 7.4% |
| SUB | 29 | 21.3% |
| SKIL | 37 | 27.2% |
| Total | 136 | 100% |
All eight categories are under the 30% ceiling. SKIL is the largest category (27.2%) because Skill Standards has 20 raw benchmarks — the largest cross-cutting benchmark set of any strand at this band — spanning influence analysis, health-information evaluation, communication, decision-making, goal-setting, and health promotion, each of which expands into several concept nodes. SUB is the second-largest (21.3%) because Substance Use Awareness and Prevention has 10 dense benchmarks, several of which bundle multiple substances or multiple effects and were split into individual concepts for clarity, consistent with the treatment at Grade 6-8.