In Grades K-4 students receive science instruction 3-5 times per week for 30-45 minutes. Technology is integrated into each grade level’s curriculum as appropriate.
Kindergarten
Plant and Animal Needs: In these units, students use observations to understand the basic needs of plants and animals. Students explore how plants animals need things to survive and a safe place to grow and live. They learn how plants and animals can change and adapt their environments to meet those needs.
Weather: In these units, students explore storms and severe weather! They obtain information from weather forecasts to prepare for storms and stay safe. They also practice describing the various characteristics of weather (wind, clouds, temperature, and precipitation) in order to make their own predictions about storms. They also gather evidence in order to identify daily and seasonal weather patterns. They use those patterns to explain mysteries like why you might lose your jacket during the day or why birds lay their eggs at certain times of the year. Students explore how the Sun's energy heats up the pavement, keeps us warm, and can even melt marshmallows. Using what they learn, students think about ways that shade and structures can reduce the warming effect of the Sun.
Pushes and Pulls: Students are introduced to pushes and pulls and how those affect the motion of objects. Students observe and investigate the effects of what happens when the strength or direction of those pushes and pulls are changed.
Grade 1
Plant and Animal Traits and Survival: Students explore how the external characteristics of animals are essential for their survival. Students also make observations of parents and their offspring, determining how they are similar and how their behaviors help offspring survive. They use observations to understand the basic needs of plants, such as water and sunlight. They also observe young plants and the changes they undergo as they grow from seed to seedling.
Day and Night Patterns: Students make observations of the Sun and shadows throughout the day and across the seasons. They use their observations to understand patterns that occur throughout the day. They explore the Moon and stars. They observe and record the appearance of the Moon to determine its cyclical pattern. They also determine why stars are only visible at night.
Light, Sound and Communication: Students investigate light and sound! They explore how materials vibrate and how vibrating materials can make sounds. They also investigate
light and illumination and use those investigations to create simple devices that allow them to communicate across a distance.
Grade 2
Animal Biodiversity and Plant Adaptations: Students begin to develop an understanding of the world's animal biodiversity. They explore animal classification and the traits that define each group. Students then turn their focus to habitats and how the surrounding environment affects what organisms live in a particular environment. They explore the needs of plants through hands-on investigations. They explore how and why plants disperse their seeds, what those seeds need in order to grow, and what the adult plants need in order to survive and thrive.
Erosion and the Earth’s Surface: Students explore how water shapes the Earth's surface. Students construct and use models of mountains to demonstrate that water flows downhill, and in the process, transforms huge rocks into the tiny grains of sand we find at the beach. Students also construct and use model hills to determine the causes of erosion, and to design solutions to problems caused by erosion.
Material Properties: Students explore the properties of materials and matter! They describe and classify different types of materials by properties like hardness, flexibility, and absorbency, and they investigate how those properties are useful in meeting basic human needs (such as clothing and cooking). They also investigate how heating and cooling affect the properties of materials.
Grade 3
Animals Through Time: Students develop an understanding of how animals and their environments have changed through time. Fossils provide a window into the animals and habitats of the past. Analyzing the traits of animals that are alive today and comparing them to fossils, provides evidence of how these ancient organisms and environments of the past may have appeared.
Life Cycles: Students compare and contrast the life cycles of both animals and plants. Students create models to build an understanding that all organisms share certain stages in their life cycles: birth, growth, reproduction, and death. Students also explore how an understanding of life cycles can aid in solving problems that occur when there are too many or too few organisms in a particular environment.
Heredity, Survival, and Selection: Students explore the inherited and acquired traits of plants and animals. Analyzing traits provides evidence for how those traits vary, how they are inherited, and how they have changed over time through both artificial and natural selection. Students also examine how a particular environment can affect traits, including inherited traits that provide animals with an advantage for survival.
Weather and Climate: Students investigate and make predictions about the weather through careful observation of the clouds and wind. Students also learn to differentiate between weather and climate and use models to reveal global climate patterns.
Forces, Motion, and Magnets: Students explore the forces all around them. They investigate the effects of balanced and unbalanced forces, the pushes and pulls of bridge structures, and the effects of gravity and friction on the motion of objects. Students also explore the power of magnetic forces and design solutions to everyday problems using their knowledge of these forces.
Grade 4
Human Body, Vision, and The Brain: Students investigate structures and functions of the human body. Students explore how our bones and muscles are interconnected, how our eyes interact with light and impact our vision, and how our brain responds to stimuli in our environment.
Animal and Plant Adaptations: Students explore the adaptations of animals and plants. Students investigate how the external and internal structures of an organism work together as an interconnected system that aid in their growth and survival. They also use models to explore how a combination of instincts and memories influence animal behavior.
Earth’s Features and Processes: Students investigate features and processes of the Earth’s surface. Students explore the rapid process of volcanic eruptions! In contrast, students also explore the gradual Earth processes of weathering and erosion. Students apply their knowledge and design solutions to mitigate the impacts of these processes on humans.
Sound, Waves, and Communications: Students investigate the science of sound. Students construct physical devices to feel the vibrations that allow us to communicate across distances. Students also use digital devices to visualize the characteristics of different sound waves that cause us to hear different things.
Energy and Energy Transfer: Students explore energy! Students investigate how energy is stored, how it can make objects move, and how collisions transfer energy between objects. Students also construct chain reaction machines to explore the many different ways that energy can be transferred.
Electricity, Light, and Heat: Students investigate the different forms of energy! Students obtain information about how heat energy, solar energy, wind energy, and water energy can be transformed into electrical energy. They also construct devices that convert energy from one form into another, such as heat into motion and electricity into light.
