science
Grade 3
Overview
Third grade students, in accordance with the Next Generation Science Standards, will be challenged with formulating questions, defining problems, planning and carrying out investigations, analyzing and interpreting data, designing solutions, engaging in argument from evidence by obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information. Students are expected to use these practices to demonstrate understanding of the core ideas. This year's core ideas are forces and interactions, weather and climate, life cycles and traits and survival in the environment.
Unit 1
Forces and Interactions
In this unit, students are expected to develop understanding of balanced and unbalanced forces. Students will gather evidence that the forces acting on an object at rest sum to zero while forces that do not sum to zero cause changes in an object’s speed or direction of motion. Data on an object’s motion will be collected and if a regular pattern is observed, students will be able to make predictions of an object’s future motion. In addition to learning that objects in contact exert forces on each other, forces that act at a distance will be explored. Students will apply the engineering design process as they solve a problem by using scientific ideas about magnets.
Unit 2
Weather and Climate
In this unit students are able to organize and use data to describe typical weather conditions expected during a particular season. Weather is the condition of the atmosphere in one particular area for one particular period of time. Scientists record weather patterns in an area over time so they can make predictions about what kind of weather might happen next. Climate describes an area’s typical weather conditions and the extent to which those conditions vary over time. Students will apply the engineering design process as they design, build, and test a model of a house capable of withstanding extreme weather.
Unit 3
Life Cycles
In this unit, students will develop understandings that plants and animals have predictable characteristics at different stages of development. All animals have life cycles that follow a predictable pattern which include: birth, growth, reproduction and death. Animals are generally born in one of two ways: live birth and eggs. Some animals are born resembling their parents, and some animals go through life cycle stages, which include metamorphosis.
Unit 4
Traits and Survival in the Environment
In this unit, students will learn that many characteristics of organisms are inherited from their parents. These characteristics, or traits, include physical structures and behaviors. Other traits are learned or acquired and are the result of the organism’s interactions with its habitat. Within organisms of the same species there are variations or slight differences. Sometimes these variations give an organism an advantage in meeting its basic needs for survival and adapting to changes in its habitat. Being part of a group helps animals meet their basic needs for survival: food and water, shelter, protection from predators, and changes in their habitat.