CCCs & SEPs

Beginning of the year

This week we got to know each other and began learning about 3D science. The three parts of our Utah SEEd standards are Crosscutting Concepts (how students think about science), Science and Engineering Practices (what students DO in science) and the Core Ideas (what students learn about science in 6th grade). It is going to be an awesome year of DOING science! We also learned about having a growth mindset rather than a fixed mindset. You can learn more about that by watching the video on the left below. Our first CCC is patterns (see the video on the right below). The class participated in several activities this week to instill an understanding of patterns in science. Make sure to observe the moon EVERY DAY!

The solar system

Scale and Proportion - It can be tough to understand a sense of scale. The universe is so vast, and an atom is so small--what does that mean? What does it look like? These videos might help.

Matter and Energy

Cause and Effect- Everything in science can and should be traced back to causality--EVERYTHING! We will be entering into a specific study of matter and energy and WHY matter changes state. Cause and effect are critical in this study. Kids ask "Why?" from the time they are very young. We will exploit that tendency to get the kids to figure out the why, and to argue based on the evidence they find.