Science and STEM

Our vision in APS is to have ALL students engage in science and engineering units at each grade level that allow students to think deeply about science ideas through natural, engaging phenomenon and then apply that knowledge to solve authentic design challenges.

Phenomenon-Based unit where they are investigating big science ideas to make sense of a natural phenomenon (Open Source)
Engineering Design-Based unit where they are applying their science knowledge to a design challenge (Engineering is Elementary)

Elementary Grade Level Outcomes and Unit Resources

Kindergarten

The standards in kindergarten help students formulate answers to questions such as:

What happens if you push or pull an object harder?
Where do animals live and why do they live there?
What is the weather like today and how is it different from yesterday?

By the end of kindergarten students are expected to develop understanding of patterns and variations in local weather and the purpose of weather forecasting to prepare for, and respond to, severe weather. Students will be able to apply an understanding of the effects of different strengths or directions of pushes and pulls on the motion of an object to analyze a design solution. Students are also expected to develop understanding of what plants and animals need to survive and the relationship between their needs and where they live. The crosscutting concepts of patterns; cause and effect; systems and system models are organizing concepts for kindergarten.

First Grade

The standards in FIRST grade help students formulate answers to questions such as:

What happens when materials vibrate?
What happens when there is no light?
What are some ways plants and animals meet their needs so that they can survive and grow?
How are parents and their children similar and different?
What objects are in the sky and how do they seem to move?

By the end of first grade students develop understanding of the relationship between sound and vibrating materials as well as between the availability of light and ability to see objects. Students are also expected to develop understanding of how plants and animals use their external parts to help them survive, grow, and meet their needs as well as how behaviors of parents and offspring help the offspring survive. The understanding is developed that young plants and animals are like, but not exactly the same as, their parents. Students are able to observe, describe, and predict some patterns of the movement of objects in the sky. The crosscutting concepts of patterns; cause and effect; and structure and function are organizing concepts for first grade.

Second Grade

The standards in second grade help students formulate answers to questions such as:

How does land change and what are some things that cause it to change?
What are the different kinds of land and bodies of water?
How are materials similar and different from one another, and how do the properties of the materials relate to their use?
What do plants need to grow?
How many types of living things live in a place?

By the end of second grade students will develop an understanding of what plants need to grow and how plants depend on animals for seed dispersal and pollination. Students are also compare the diversity of life in different habitats. An understanding of observable properties of materials is developed by students at this level through analysis and classification of different materials. Students are able to apply their understanding of the idea that wind and water can change the shape of the land and create design solutions to slow or prevent such change. The crosscutting concepts of patterns; cause and effect; energy and matter; structure and function; and stability and change are organizing concepts for second grade.

Third Grade

The standards in third grade help students formulate answers to questions such as:

How can the impact of weather-related hazards be reduced?
How do organisms vary in their traits?
What happens to organisms when their environment changes?
How do equal and unequal forces on an object affect the object?
How can magnets be used?

By the end of third grade, students will be able to:

organize and use data to describe typical weather conditions expected during a particular season and design a solution that reduces the impacts of a weather related hazard.
understand the similarities and differences of organisms’ life cycles and how organisms have different inherited traits.
Describe when the environment changes some organisms survive, some move to new locations, some move into the transformed environment, and some die.
determine the effects of balanced and unbalanced forces on the motion of an object and the cause and effect relationships of electric or magnetic interactions between two objects not in contact with each other.
apply their understanding of magnetic interactions to define a simple design problem that can be solved with magnets.

The crosscutting concepts of patterns; cause and effect; scale, proportion; systems and system models are organizing concepts for third grade.

Fourth Grade

The standards in fourth grade help students formulate answers to questions such as:

What are waves and what are some things they can do?
How can water, ice, wind and vegetation change the land?
How do internal and external structures support the survival, growth, behavior, and reproduction of plants and animals?
What is energy and how is it related to motion?
How is energy transferred? How can energy be used to solve a problem?

by the end of fourth grade students will be able to use a model of waves to describe patterns of waves in terms of amplitude and wavelength, and that waves can cause objects to move. Students are expected to develop understanding of the effects of weathering or the rate of erosion by water, ice, wind, or vegetation. They apply their knowledge of natural Earth processes to generate and compare multiple solutions to reduce the impacts of such processes on humans. Fourth graders are expected to develop an understanding that plants and animals have internal and external structures that function to support survival, growth, behavior, and reproduction. By developing a model, they describe that an object can be seen when light reflected from its surface enters the eye. Students are expected to develop an understanding that energy can be transferred from place to place by sound, light, heat, and electric currents or from object to object through collisions. They apply their understanding of energy to design, test, and refine a device that converts energy from one form to another. The crosscutting concepts of patterns; cause and effect; energy and matter; systems and system models are the organizing concepts for fourth grade.

Fifth Grade

The standards in fifth grade help students formulate answers to questions such as:

When matter changes, does its weight change?
How much water can be found in different places on Earth?
Can new substances be created by combining other substances?
How does matter cycle through ecosystems?
Where does the energy in food come from and what is it used for?
How do lengths and directions of shadows or relative lengths of day and night change from day to day, and how does the appearance of some stars change in different seasons?

By the end of fifth grade students will be able to

describe that matter is made of particles too small to be seen through the development of a model.
understand the idea that regardless of the type of change that matter undergoes, the total weight of matter is conserved.
determine whether the mixing of two or more substances results in new substances.
Through the development of a model using an example, students are able to describe ways the geosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere, and/or atmosphere interact.
describe and graph data to provide evidence about the distribution of water on Earth.
develop an understanding of the idea that plants get the materials they need for growth chiefly from air and water
describe the movement of matter among plants, animals, decomposers, and the environment and that energy in animals’ food was once energy from the sun.
develop an understanding of patterns of daily changes in length and direction of shadows, day and night, and the seasonal appearance of some stars in the night sky.

The crosscutting concepts of patterns; cause and effect; scale, proportion, and quantity; energy and matter; and systems and systems models are organizing concepts for fifth grade.

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