Elementary School Science
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TCI’s K-8 NGSS-aligned Science Curriculum integrates seamlessly into your current practice.
TCI’s K-8 NGSS-aligned Science Curriculum integrates seamlessly into your current practice.
Explaining Phenomena
Phenomenon-based storylines provide real-world problems for students to connect their learning with their own experiences. Investigations, reading notes, and key science concepts enable students to explore, explain, and make sense of phenomena.
Designing Solutions
Engineering Challenges and investigations engage students to design solutions directly relating to Disciplinary Core Ideas.
Three Dimensional Learning
Each and every lesson focuses on at least one Science and Engineering Practice, one Disciplinary Core Idea, and one Crosscutting Concept. Each dimension is selected to support learning as it relates to the Performance Expectation.
Anchoring phenomena prompts engagement by encouraging students to make connections with the world around them, then later ties back during the Performance Assessment.
Additionally, each lesson has its own phenomena which work together as part of the storyline to build conceptual understanding of the anchoring phenomenon. Anchoring phenomena are introduced with an embedded video, such as this example.
Space-The Solar System: Performance Assessment Storyline
Each lesson begins with an investigative phenomenon to pique students’ interest and drive instruction throughout the investigation. This lesson-level phenomena is linked back to the anchoring phenomenon.
In Grade 3, students observe why your hair might stick up when sliding down a slide
In Cells and Genetics, students observe why humans have opposable thumbs, but turtles do not.
In the Matter program, students observe the phenomenon why some liquids do not mix with other liquids.
Hands-on investigations in every lesson provide students opportunities to practice all three dimensions. Teachers are given support within the lesson guides to see exactly where that three-dimensional learning happens.
Bead a bracelet to replicate how mutations can change the structure and thus the function of a protein.
Grow plants with and without water or light to determine what plants need to grow.
Develop a model that shows the relationship between particle motion and states of matter.
Engineering Challenges and investigations encourage students to design solutions directly relating to Disciplinary Core Ideas.
Design, build, test, and modify a structure for dispersing seeds that mimic how plants disperse seeds in nature.
Build an earthquake table and then design the tallest structure possible while still being quake-resistant.
NGSS has changed how students are assessed.
Lesson Assessments include a variety of selected response and constructed response questions that incorporate the 3-Dimensions, core ideas, practices, and crosscutting concepts. You’ll be provided with completed answer guides and rubrics. View how tightly we align with the NGSS correlations.
Questions are designed to mimic the CAST format. Students practice taking assessments online to prepare for state tests.
Each unit of Bring Science Alive! includes a Performance Assessment. The activities, written and oral assignments allow teachers to assess student understanding of science contents within the context of the phenomenon discussed during the unit storyline.
By using a performance task, teachers can assess across three-dimensions a student’s ability to engage in Science and Engineering Practices, apply Crosscutting Concepts and to understand Disciplinary Core Ideas.
The Performance Assessment not only allows teachers to assess student learning but gives students a chance to demonstrate their learning in a meaningful way.
Built from the ground up to align with NGSS, our science curriculum provides the Investigation Kit materials, blended learning resources, online science textbooks, and customizable assessments that teachers need to support student success, in the moment and throughout the year.
A TCI classroom puts student learning and teacher needs first. Find out why teachers choose TCI curriculum to support their teaching and instill a love of learning in their students.
