In this unit, students explore the science phenomenon of how materials can attract or repel other materials without touching them. In this lesson, they investigate how magnets can attract or repel certain objects within their magnetic field. This page highlights the key components of this lesson.
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.
In this unit, students focus on animals, analyzing how animals’ body parts help them survive and grow. This page is a high-level extract of the first lesson of the unit in which students build insect models to investigate the science phenomena of an insect’s body parts’ structure and function. Students observe how ants use their body parts to get what they need to survive.
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.
In this unit, students continue to learn about 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 highlights each component of lesson two in which students explore a butterfly’s body structure and function.
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.
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.