Science

The Morris Plains Science Curriculum is designed to support students in acquiring essential 21^st century skills and knowledge in the area of science through the use of over-arching best-practices across all relevant scientific and engineering content. In addition to addressing the Common Core Standards, this curriculum integrates research-based strategies in effective science instruction, multiple intelligence theory, and differentiated instruction.

The students of Morris Plains are being educated in an exciting and ever-changing global environment, and as such their educational experiences must prepare them for a wide range of future opportunities. In order to prepare students to be ready for the challenges that lay ahead, their time in the classroom must be filled with relevant, collaborative instruction. Students must be given opportunities to understand how what they learn in the classroom is applicable to their life outside of school. They must be provided with cross-curricular learning experiences which help them make meaning of what they learn and give them chances to apply that knowledge to real-world scenarios, problems, and situations. Collaboration with peers will allow students to take an active role in their learning, while at the same time bolstering important communication and interpersonal skills necessary for 21^st century learners. Working to solve problems, large and small, with opportunities for hands-on learning is essential. These students will need to apply understanding, not simply procedures, to what they do in order to solve the problems laid before them. Using understanding as the vehicle for remembering and applying, students will build understanding through actively seeking solutions to problems. The technology that is integral for our 21^st century learners must be infused into instruction and practice, using it as both a vehicle to disseminate content and a tool to create and organize content.

Instruction of scientific and engineering principles must be grounded in process. Students need many varied opportunities to ask and answer questions, as well as pose and solve problems. The process of hypothesizing, experimenting, evaluating, and drawing conclusions is of utmost importance for our learners. Students should be working in problem-based, hands-on lab settings for much of their science instruction. From those experiences, students must find meaningful and effective ways to evaluate, organize, and communicate their findings to a larger audience. Additionally, students must be able to analyze existing information, make it meaningful, and apply it to the situations that they encounter and use it to draw logical conclusions. Throughout the curriculum, technology must be infused as a way to gather, organize, analyze, and communicate information in relevant ways. Science is ever-changing and so relevant and accessible to our students. It should be taught in a manner which demands daily curiosity about the scientific and engineered world surrounding us. These inquiries should be addressed with cross-curricular intentionality, using other major academic content areas as tools to further the curiosity and knowledge of our learners.

With a growing need to understand the workings of our complex world and find solutions to an increasing number of significant problems, preparing students to enter careers in the fields of science and engineering must be a priority for districts like Morris Plains. With the science curriculum included in this document, we will prepare students who are able to confidently pursue higher education in the areas of science and engineering.