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Elementary science instruction in the Amherst & Pelham Public Schools is guided by the 2016 Massachusetts Science and Technology/Engineering Framework and the following themes, which echo the Next Generation Science Standards Science & Engineering Practices and Crosscutting Concepts.
Elementary science instruction in the Amherst & Pelham Public Schools is guided by the 2016 Massachusetts Science and Technology/Engineering Framework and the following themes, which echo the Next Generation Science Standards Science & Engineering Practices and Crosscutting Concepts.
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Over the course of the K-6 experience, students learn how to:
Over the course of the K-6 experience, students learn how to:
ask questions and define problems
develop and use models
plan and carry out investigations
analyze and interpret data
use mathematical and computational thinking
construct explanations and design solutions
engage in argument from evidence
obtain, evaluate, and communicate information
These are commonly referred to as Science & Engineering Practices or SEPs.
Over the course of the K-6 experience, students learn about:
Over the course of the K-6 experience, students learn about:
1. Patterns
Observed patterns of forms and events guide organization and classification, and they prompt questions about relationships and the factors that influence them.
2. Cause and effect
Events have causes, sometimes simple, sometimes multifaceted. A major activity of science is investigating and explaining causal relationships and the mechanisms by which they are mediated. Such mechanisms can then be tested across given contexts and used to predict and explain events in new contexts.
3. Scale, proportion, and quantity
In considering phenomena, it is critical to recognize what is relevant at different measures of size, time, and energy and to recognize how changes in scale, proportion, or quantity affect a system’s structure or performance.
4. Systems and system models
Defining the system under study—specifying its boundaries and making explicit a model of that system—provides tools for understanding and testing ideas that are applicable throughout science and engineering.
5. Energy and matter: Flows, cycles, and conservation
Tracking fluxes of energy and matter into, out of, and within systems helps one understand the systems’ possibilities and limitations.
6. Structure and function
The way in which an object or living thing is shaped and its substructure determine many of its properties and functions.
7. Stability and change
For natural and built systems alike, conditions of stability and determinants of rates of change or evolution of a system are critical elements of study.
These are commonly referred to as Crosscutting Concepts (CCs or XCs).
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