Jeff Breiten

Unit 1: How Will It Move?

How Will It Move? is a 10-12 week, project- based physical science unit that contextualizes concepts dealing with forces and motion in students’ real-world experiences. Four interesting devices provide a common experience for all students to begin the unit, and future lessons circle back to making sense of the anchoring phenomena. This practice of exploring, asking questions, and then continuing to revisit—each time knowing a little more of the science of what is happening—enables students to learn core ideas and crosscutting concepts about energy that can be used to explain a range of phenomena in the real world. 

We will explore:

• Newton’s laws of motion

• The differences between force and energy 

• How to plan and carry out investigations - data gathering, organization, and analysis

• How to develop and use models

• How to construct explanations and engage in argument from evidence

Unit 2: How does Water Shape Our World

How Does Water Shape Our World? is a project-based Earth Science unit. In order to provide context in real-­world experiences, students are given the task of creating materials for visitor centers in specific national parks in order to show how water has shaped the land in the park. Students explore how water moves in the parks, what rock is present in the parks, and how water and rock interact. 

We will explore:

• how water moves through environments

• what types of rock are present

• how the water and rock have interacted to shape the land.

Unit 3: How is the Earth Changing

This 8-week Earth Science unit focuses on plate tectonics and builds on key conceptual understandings including the conservation of matter, convection, and energy transfer. To contextualize Earth Science concepts and scientific inquiry in real-world situations, the unit focuses on ten case study sites that describe locations around the world with geologically interesting phenomena. The target science ideas and scientific practices explored in the unit are instrumental to understanding and answering the Driving Question: How Is the Earth Changing? Students complete multiple investigations and use their knowledge to consider why particular events and geologic formations are found in different areas of the world noted in the case study sites. 

• We will investigate plate tectonics by discovering how the Earth has changed in the past and continues to change today. 

• We will explore:

  1. plate tectonics

  2. convection

  3. earthquakes, volcanoes, mountain ranges, islands, and oceanic trenches.

Unit 4: What makes the Weather Change

This Earth Science unit focuses on what causes variation in local weather events and global climate patterns by developing a model of flow of matter and energy through the atmosphere. 

 We will explore:

• climate, weather, pattern, and predictability

• how convection cells in the atmosphere are created

• patterns of temperature, clouds air pressure, humidity, wind, and precipitation