Science

The Framework for K‐12 Science Education and the Next Generation Science Standards propose that students learn core ideas and practices related to engineering as well as science. To do so, students will need high‐quality curricular materials designed to meet these goals. We report an efficacy study of an elementary engineering curriculum, Engineering is Elementary (EiE) that includes a set of hypothesized critical components designed to encourage student engagement in practices, connect engineering and science learning, and reach diverse students.

This graphic is designed to support students, teachers, and families in thinking across timescales to understand socio-ecological relationships to place across time.

This resource serves as a guide for how to use Histories of Place in planning and instruction.

This tool, Rhizome, contains three foundational pillars: complex socio-ecological systems, nature-culture relations, and field-based science learning, with student learning and sense making made central. The Seasonal Storyline engages learners and their families in field-based science that connects family knowledge and place-based, student-led investigations.

The CRIS “7e” lesson plan template, adapted from the Next Generation Science “5e”, centers the importance of including Elders and Environment in Indigenous STEM teaching and learning. The template is a way for teachers to weave Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) and Western Science into lessons, and has been formative in helping team members integrate community knowledge and land-based education into science learning experiences. 

We report on one teachers’ efforts to re-design an entire instructional unit as a coherent storyline about forces and motion as a part of a multiyear professional development (PD) project around the NGSS. Designing coherent storylines demands that teachers create opportunities for students to meaningfully engage in science practices in order to develop their knowledge over time.