In this unit, students explore the science phenomena of animal behaviors of parents and offspring that help the offspring survive. This page is a high-level extract of lesson two in which students mimic the beaver’s behavior of building dams to design their own dams that solve the problem of flooding.
In this unit, students explore the science phenomena of different processes that change Earth’s surface over time. Once students have investigated how wind and water change the shape of the land, they use their scientific knowledge to engineer a solution that prevents rainwater from washing away a sandy hillside. This page showcases key components of this lesson.
In this unit, students explore the phenomena of Earth landforms and the water cycle. Once students have modeled landforms and created maps showing the shapes and kinds of land and bodies of water, students analyze how water moves over the land as it flows downhill because of gravity and cycles between solid and liquid depending on the amount of heat present.
In this unit, students explore how plants have different parts that help them get what they need to survive from the environment. They begin with experiments that investigate the cause-and-effect relationship between water, light, and the ability of plants to grow. This page is a high-level extract of the second lesson in which students explore flowers.
In the last unit, students observed butterflies moving through their life cycle, explored how butterflies are pollinators, and then designed a hand pollinator. In this unit, students explore the science phenomena of how shelters help animals survive in their environment and then design a prototype burrow-like structure to keep a burrowing owl cool in hot temperatures.
In the last unit, students explore how objects can be seen when they are illuminated by a source of light and how light passes through opaque, transparent, and translucent materials differently. In this unit, students apply what they have learned about light and sound to design a solution that can be used to communicate over a distance.
In kindergarten, students work towards developing routines and practices that scientists use to investigate phenomena and solve problems. This page is an extract from lesson 5 where students build on their weather observation skills as they observe and record local weather data to analyze weather patterns in their geographic area. Students continue to collect weather data over several months as they move onto the next lessons to build on their weather patterns analysis.
In Unit 2 of Kindergarten, students explore characteristics of living things and investigate what plants and animals need to survive. They will also discover plant and animal life cycles, and learn about habitats. This page is a high-level extract from lesson two, where students use patterns of shared characteristics to help them sort photos of different things into groups according to whether they are living, once-living, or nonliving.
In the second unit of Kindergarten, students explore living things on Earth. They analyze the differences between living and nonliving things and then investigate what plants and animals need to live and grow. Following this, students explore human needs and activities and how those impact the planet.
In this unit, students explore science phenomena related to patterns that result from Earth’s rotation and the moon’s orbit around the sun. This page provides a brief overview of lesson two of this unit, in which students conduct two investigations and use the patterns they discover to make predictions about the future positions of the sun, moon, and stars in the sky. In the first investigation, students observe the sun’s position in the sky at different times of day, drawing a diagram (model) of the sun’s position above the horizon. In the second investigation, students use a sundial model to explore the relationship between the sun’s position and the length of shadows.
In this unit, students investigate the science phenomena of seasonal patterns and water cycles. Once students have analyzed how seasonal patterns of sunrise and sunset can be observed and predicted, they focus on seasonal temperature and rainfall patterns. They investigate temperature patterns of a specific location throughout the year.
Once students have modeled the science phenomena of insects’ body parts, they then focus on one kind of insect: the ant. They conduct an experiment to test the taste preference of harvester ants, and observe how ants use their different body parts to get food, communicate with one another, and carry out other life functions.
Standards citation: NGSS Lead States. 2013. Next Generation Science Standards: For States, By States. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. Neither WestEd nor the lead states and partners that developed the Next Generation Science Standards were involved in the production of this product, and do not endorse it.