Science and Engineering Practices
In this unit, students analyze the science phenomena of the important role that oceans play in regulating Earth’s climate. In this lesson, they focus on how oceans interact with other Earth systems to distribute water and heat around the planet, resulting in various weather patterns, including hurricanes. This page highlights key components of this lesson.
In this unit, students analyze how matter cycles between the living and nonliving parts of an ecosystem. They compare plant and animal cells, figuring out how internal structures help an organism get energy. Then, in this lesson, students figure out how energy flows and matter cycles through a food web, and investigate the phenomena of how plants convert non-food sources, such as light, air, and water, into food sources. This page showcases key elements of this lesson.
In this unit, students focus on the science phenomena of sound and hearing. Students begin with this lesson that has them exploring how sound causes matter to vibrate and how it moves differently through solids and liquids. This page highlights each component of this lesson.
In this unit, students focus on the science phenomenon of light energy, investigating how it travels in a straight line and interacts with matter. Students apply their knowledge to design a prototype with mirrors and water that creates rainbows. This page showcases each component of the lesson.
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.
This unit has students exploring animal habitat and predator-prey relationships. Once students model the living and nonliving parts of different habitats, they focus on how living things depend on other living things in their habitat for survival. As a class, students model the predator-prey relationship between foxes and rabbits in a forest habitat, and then dissect owl pellets to analyze a barn owl’s diet.
In this unit, students continue to explore the phenomena of living things, focusing on animals. They begin by observing the metamorphosis of a butterfly and then model the parts of a butterfly that help it survive in its environment. This page provides an overview of key components of this lesson that has students applying what they know about pollination to design a self-pollinating technology.
In this unit, students use propeller cars to explore the science phenomena of forces. They investigate action-reaction forces and see if a propeller car travels farther when its rubber band releases a smaller or larger force. Students then explore how friction affects motion by testing how far their car moves after rolling over smooth and rough surfaces.
In the last unit, students used propeller cars to explore the relationship between forces and motion. In this unit, students continue to explore vehicles with a focus on boats and specifically the science phenomena of properties that cause objects such as boats to float or sink.
In this unit, students investigate what makes an object float or sink, exploring the science phenomena of properties of objects that float and sink. This page is a high-level extract of the last lesson in 2nd grade that has students applying their knowledge about the relationship between an object’s properties and its ability to float.
