Module Description & Pacing Guide

This module provides grade 2 students with physical sciences core ideas dealing with matter and its interactions as well as with engineering design. The anchor phenomenon for this module is matter in two of its phases—solid and liquid. The driving questions for the module are how are solid and liquid materials similar and different? and how do the properties of solid and liquid materials relate to how they can be used and how they can change?

Students build on the science concepts of matter and its interactions developed in kindergarten using new tools to enrich observations. Students observe, describe, and compare properties of solids and liquids. They conduct investigations to find out what happens when solids and water are mixed and when liquids and water are mixed. They use their knowledge of solids and liquids to conduct an investigation on an unknown material (toothpaste). They gain firsthand experience with reversible changes caused by heating or cooling, and read about changes caused by heating that are irreversible.

Throughout the Solids and Liquids Module, students engage in science and engineering practices to collect data to answer questions, and to define problems in order to develop solutions. 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; energy and matter; structure and function; and stability and change.