Beginning with the 2020 - 2021 school year, the state of Colorado will be implementing the newly adopted science standards. The Colorado Dept. of Education (CDE) states on their website, "The Science standards reflect a new vision for science education that connects scientific knowledge, in authentic ways, to real-world problem solving and innovation. The standards forefront scientific practices that use and go beyond the inquiry process to arrive at reasoned and justifiable rationales for interpretations of phenomena/events."
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Science Expectations by the End of 4th Grade:
Science Expectations by the End of 4th Grade:
Demonstrate grade-appropriate proficiency in asking questions, developing and using models, planning and carrying out investigations, analyzing and interpreting data, constructing explanations and designing solutions, engaging in argument from evidence, and obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information.
Use those practices to demonstrate understanding of the core ideas.
Unit 1: Earth's Systems - Processes that Shape the Earth
Unit 1: Earth's Systems - Processes that Shape the Earth
How can water, ice, wind and vegetation change the land? What patterns of Earth’s features can be determined with the use of maps?
Students are expected to develop understanding of the effects of weathering or the rate of erosion by water, ice, wind, or vegetation. They apply their knowledge of natural Earth processes to generate and compare multiple solutions to reduce the impacts of such processes on humans. In order to describe patterns of Earth’s features, students analyze and interpret data from maps.
Unit 2: Energy
Unit 2: Energy
What is energy and how is it related to motion? How is energy transferred? How can energy be used to solve a problem?
By developing a model, students describe that an object can be seen when light reflected from its surface enters the eye. Students are able to use evidence to construct an explanation of the relationship between the speed of an object and the energy of that object. Students are expected to develop an understanding that energy can be transferred from place to place by sound, light, heat, and electric currents or from object to object through collisions. They apply their understanding of energy to design, test, and refine a device that converts energy from one form to another.
Unit 3: Waves - Waves and Information
Unit 3: Waves - Waves and Information
What are waves and what are some things they can do?
Students are able to use a model of waves to describe patterns of waves in terms of amplitude and wavelength, and that waves can cause objects to move. Student are able to develop a model to describe that light reflecting from objects and entering the eye allows objects to be seen. They generate and compare multiple solutions that use patterns to transfer information.
Unit 4: Structure, Function and Information Processing
Unit 4: Structure, Function and Information Processing
How do internal and external structures support the survival, growth, behavior, and reproduction of plants and animals?
Fourth graders are expected to construct an argument that plants and animals have internal and external structures that function to support survival, growth, behavior, and reproduction. Additionally, students will use a model to describe that animals receive different types of information through their senses, process the information in their brain, and respond to the information in different ways.
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