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Rialto Unified School District

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K-5 Scope and Sequence

Science Service Area

Science is about making sense of the natural world!  NGSS is shifting instruction away from simply knowing science to emphasizing using science and engineering practices to make sense of the world or solve problems.  

The goal for the NGSS teacher is to design opportunities for students to make sense of the world around them.  The process boils down to these four questions:

  1. What are we trying to figure out?

  2. How will we figure it out?

  3. How do we keep track of what we are figuring out?

  4. How does it all fit together?  What does it mean?

324 N. Palm Ave.
Rialto, CA 92376
(909) 879-6004 x 2523

"CURIOSITY

is the compass that leads us to our passions
Follow it and  you won't be disappointed
The future belongs to the curious."
~Anonymous

K-5 Sense Making Anchor Practices

Observe

Science and Engineering Practice 2
Developing and Using Models

Help your students:

  • Identify limitations of models
  • Collaboratively develop and revise a model
  • Develop an abstract representation to describe a scientific principle  or design solution
  • Develop a model to describe and/or predict phenomena
  • Develop a diagram or simple physical prototype
  • Use a model to test cause-and-effect relationships

Question

Science and Engineering Practice 1
Asking Questions

Help your students:

  • Ask questions about what would happen if a variable changed.
  • Identify testable and non-testable questions
  • Ask questions that can be investigated and predict reasonable outcomes based on patterns (e.g. cause and effect)
  • Use prior knowledge to describe problems that can be solved
  • Define a simple design problem

Communicate

Science and Engineering Practice 8
Obtaining, Evaluating & Communicating Information

Help your students:

  • Read, comprehend grade-appropriate complex texts & other reliable media
  • Compare and combine complex texts
  • Combine information in a written text
  • Obtain and combine information from books or other reliable media to explain phenomena or solutions
  • Communicate technical information orally and in written formats, including various forms of media, and may include tables, diagrams, and charts

"The classroom culture of discourse must be developed and supported...For all students the emphasis should be on making meaning, on hearing and understanding he contributions of others, and on communicated their own ideas in a common effort to build understanding of the phenomenon or to design solutions of the system being investigated and discussed... for this behavior are to a great extent common across all the science disciplines, and indeed across all the subject areas."

 

Excerpt:  "Science and Language for English Language Learners in Relation to Next Generation Science Standards and with Implications for Common Core Standards for English Language Arts and Mathematics," Okhee Lee, Helen Quin and Guadalupe Valdes, Educational Researcher published online 11 April 2013

Beliefs

The Rialto USD Science service area believes:

  1. Science is what you DO.
  2. All Rialto USD students can excel in science/ STEM and access to science/STEM is a social justice issue.

We (teachers) have agency, and we are the change we want to see.

Expectations

General Instructional Expectations:

  1. Use the adopted materials
  2. Teach science a minimum:
    • 60 minutes for (K-2) per week
    • 90 minutes for (3-5) per week
  3. Do the Common Formative Assessment
  4. Support students in the Science and Engineering Fair Experience
  5. Go Outside, use the Gardens and Groves (if available) and have fun!

Rialto Unified School District’s science curriculum maps are standards-based maps driven by the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and implemented using Discovery Education, Mystery Science, and teacher-created resources. Student achievement is increased when both teachers and students know where they are going (their standards), why they are going there, and what is required of them to get there.

 

Resources