Topics Covered:

• Unit 1: Earth and Science

  • The Earth and Sun Module provides students with experiences to explore the properties of the atmosphere, energy transfer from the Sun to Earth, and the dynamics of weather and water cycling in Earth’s atmosphere. Other experiences help students to develop and use models to understand Earth’s place in the solar system, and the interactions of Earth, the Sun, and the Moon to reveal predictable patterns—daily length and direction of shadows, day and night, and the seasonal appearance of stars in the night sky. Students gain experiences that will contribute to the understanding of crosscutting concepts of patterns; cause and effect; scale, proportion, and quantity; systems and system models; and energy and matter.

• Unit 2: Living Systems

  • The Living Systems Module has four investigations that focus on systems as the unit of study. The idea of a system is one of the grand integrating (crosscutting) concepts that pervades all of science.

• Unit 3: Mixtures and Solutions

  • Chemistry is the study of the structure of matter and the changes or transformations that take place within those structures. Learning about the properties and behaviors of substances and systems of substances gives us knowledge about how things go together and how they can be taken apart and gives us the opportunity to use and develop models that explain phenomena too small to see directly. Learning about changes in substances can lead to the development of new materials and new ways to produce energy and resources such as clean drinking water.

  • The Mixtures and Solutions Module has five investigations that engage students with the phenomena of matter and its interactions in our everyday life—mixtures, solutions, solubility, concentration, and chemical reactions. The driving question is what is matter and what happens when samples of matter interact? Students come to know that matter is made of particles too small to be seen and develop the understanding that matter is conserved when it changes state—from solid to liquid to gas—when it dissolves in another substance, and when it is part of a chemical reaction. Students have experiences with mixtures, solutions of different concentrations, and reactions forming new substances. They also engage in engineering experiences with separation of materials. Students gain experiences that will contribute to the understanding of crosscutting concepts of patterns; cause and effect; scale, proportion, and quantity; systems and system models; and energy and matter.