Elementary Instruction
NGSS Shifts in Classroom Instruction
Science is about making sense of the natural world! NGSS is shifting instruction away from simply knowing science to emphasizing using science and engineering practices to make sense of the world or solve problems.
The goal for the NGSS teacher is to design opportunities for students to make sense of the world around them. The process boils down to these four questions:
What are we trying to figure out?
How will we figure it out?
How do we keep track of what we are figuring out?
How does it all fit together? What does it mean?
Rialto USD Science Instructional Commitments
Equitable Core Instruction
- Weekly classroom instruction
- NEW NGSS Curriculum Maps are AVAILABLE
- Content that is accessible for all students
Annual Participation in
Science and Engineering Fair
- Kindergarten - Grade 2: 1 Project per class
- Grade 3: Class/ Small Group/ Independent Projects
- Grade 4/5: Small Group/ Independent Projects
Common Labs
- Hands- On
- Science ideas are developed over time
- Focused on Communication
Open-and-Go lessons that inspire kids to love science!
Click the title to redirect to the Discovery Education + STEM Connect login page and mysteryscience.com. Refer to your grade level chapter in the Next Generation Science Standards Framework to learn more about instructional expectations.
PBL deepens learning bringing science to life!
Click the title to redirect to PBLworks.org. Get inspired by project ideas! Refer to your grade level curriculum map for additional guidance.
Commit to be a Green Team Ally . We're all in this together!
Click the title to redirect to A Teacher's Call to Action. Click the link to find additional Environment Resources for Teachers. Rialto USD science is committed to NGSS and the Ca. Environmental Principles and Concepts. Refer to your grade level curriculum map for guidance.
Sense Making Anchor Practices are Interdisciplinary
"The classroom culture of discourse must be developed and supported...For all students the emphasis should be on making meaning, on hearing and understanding he contributions of others, and on communicated their own ideas in a common effort to build understanding of the phenomenon or to design solutions of the system being investigated and discussed... for this behavior are to a great extent common across all the science disciplines, and indeed across all the subject areas."
Click the image to access the entire publication
Excerpt: "Science and Language for English Language Learners in Relation to Next Generation Science Standards and with Implications for Common Core Standards for English Language Arts and Mathematics," Okhee Lee, Helen Quin and Guadalupe Valdes, Educational Researcher published online 11 April 2013
K-5 Sense Making Anchor Practices
Observe
- Identify limitations of models
- Collaboratively develop and revise a model
- Develop an abstract representation to describe a scientific principle or design solution
- Develop a model to describe and/ore predict phenomena
- Develop a diagram or simple physical prototype
- Use a model to test cause and effect relationships
Question
Help your students:
- Ask questions about what would happen if a variable changed.
- Identify testable and non-testable questions
- Ask questions that can be investigated and predict reasonable outcomes based on patterns (like, cause and effect)
- Use prior knowledge to describe problems that can be solved
- Define a simple design problem
Communicate
Help your students:
- Read, comprehend grade-appropriate complex texts & other reliable media
- Compare and combine complex texts
- Combine information in written text
- Obtain and combine information from books or other reliable media to explain phenomena or solutions
- Communicate technical information orally and in written formats including various forms of media and may include tables, diagrams and charts
Curriculum Scope and Sequence K-5
Quick Links
Rialto Unified School District’s science curriculum maps are standards-based maps driven by the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and implemented using Discovery Education, Mystery Science, and teacher created resources. Student achievement is increased when both teachers and students know where they are going (their standards), why they are going there, and what is required of them to get there. CLICK HERE to Access the Quicklinks for your grade level.
Rialto USD Science Department believes:
Science is what you DO
All Rialto USD students can excel in science/ STEM. Access to science/STEM is a social justice issue.
We (teachers) are the change we want to see.