The Next Generation Science Standards are designed to help realize a vision for education in the science and engineering in which students, over multiple years of school, actively engage in scientific and engineering practices and apply crosscutting concepts to deepen their understanding of the core ideas in these fields. (NRC Framework 2012, p. 10)
In the California Science Framework, high school performance expectations are organized and bundled into sample courses and instructional segments. These models are designed for district use and consideration as they build their course sequence and descriptions.
Two course models are identified in Chapter 7: Three Course Model and Chapter 8: Four Course Model of the 2016 California Science Framework. The HLPUSD NGSS Resource Center provides support for each of these models. An alternative fully integrated three course model (every science, every year) is outlined in Appendix 4 of the CA Science Framework.
The High School Three Course Model contains The Living Earth, Chemistry in the Earth System, and Physics in the Universe courses. The three course model combines all high school performance expectations (PEs) into three courses. To highlight the nature of Earth and space sciences (ESS) as an interdisciplinary pursuit with crucial importance in California, the three courses present an integration of ESS and one of the other high school disciplines. In each course, the integration adds value to both disciplines in the pair, with each providing an engaging motivation for and a deeper insight into the other. ESS phenomena can serve as an engaging motivation for studying the other disciplines while understanding of each discipline provides deeper insight into processes in ESS. The three courses have been explicitly titled to emphasize this synergy:
Explanation of NGSS