TEA Science Workshop #4

October 3, 2012Kim LottUtah State University

Dimension 2Crosscutting Concepts These concepts help provide students

with an organizational framework for connecting knowledge from the various disciplines into a coherent and scientifically based view of the world.

These are currently not explicitly taught in US schools, but it is the hope that this will change in the new standards.

1. Patterns Observable patterns of forms and

events guide organization and classification.

Often times, these patterns lead to questions about relationships and the factors that influence them.

Progression In early elementary, students can start to

document patterns that they observe (i.e. seasonal weather, moon phases, etc.).

Upper elementary, students can start to analyze the patterns in the rate of changes.

Middle school students can start to relate patterns to the nature of microscopic or atomic-level structure.

By high school, students need to recognize that different patterns can be observed at different scales (DNA vs physical characteristics).

2. Cause and Effect: Mechanism and explanation A major activity of science is

investigating and explaining causal relationships and the mechanisms in which they are mediated.

Such mechanisms can be tested across several contexts and then used to predict and explain events in new contexts.

Progression As students are studying patterns they

can start to investigate the causes and design tests to collect more data to either support or refute their explanations.

By middle and high school, students can use argumentation to support their causal relationships.

3. Scale, Proportion and Quantity

It is critical to recognize what is relevant at different measurements of time, size and energy.

Recognize how changes in scale, proportion and quantity can alter a systems structure or performance.

Progression Young students often talk about scale without

the use of measurement (bigger to smaller, faster to slower, hotter to colder).

Length is usually the first units for measurement, but once the children become familiar with length they can expand their understanding and the need of other units of measurement.

As students’ mathematical sophistication increases, so does their use of scale and proportional reasoning.

4. Systems and System Models The world is entirely too complex to

study as a whole. For this reason, scientists and students

define smaller portions for the convenience of investigations.

These small sets of investigations are called ‘systems.’

A system is a set of related objects or components that form a whole.

Progression Starting at the earliest of grades, students

should be asked to express their thinking with drawings or diagrams.

As students progress, their models will become more sophisticated and start to make explicit the invisible features of a system (i.e. arrows showing energy or matter transfers).

Having students draw and publically explain their models 1.) allows them to clarify their explanations, 2.)allows other students to critique and offer feedback, and 3.) gives the teacher assessment of areas that students understand or that might need further instruction.

5. Energy and Matter: Flows, Cycles, and Conservation

The changes in quantities within a system can only change by transfer into or out of the system.

This idea of conservation of energy/matter provide limits to what can occur within a system.

Progression Energy is a difficult topic to discuss in

elementary school. Many times everyday language leads to misconceptions.

Elementary students can recognize the conservation of matter and the flow of matter into and out of a given system.

However, the energy flow that is occurring with these matter flows is not introduced until middle school and not fully addressed until later in high school.

6. Structure and Function The way in which an object or living thing is

shaped and its substructure influences its properties and functions.

Often times the concept of scale is necessary in order to know what aspects of shape or material are relevant in investigating a particular phenomena.

For example, the substructures of molecules are not particularly important in understanding the phenomena of pressure; however, they are relevant to understanding why the ratio between temperature and pressure at constant volume is different for different substances.

Progression In elementary school, students explore

the structures and functions of living and non-living objects all the time (i.e. which materials build the strongest tower, organisms using different structures to get food, etc.)

As students’ progress and their technologies become more sophisticated (i.e. microscopes), students begin to create models to explain why certain structures function as observed.

7. Stability and Change Stability are the aspects of a system

that are unchanging. Small disturbances in the system will

not last and the system will revert back to a stable condition.

A systems stability can be stable on a short time scale, but instable on a larger scale.

When systems change over time, it is important to note parts that are unchanged.

Progression One of the goals of the discussion of

stability and change in the elementary grades should be the recognition that it can be as important to ask why something does not change as why it does.

In middle school, as students’ understanding of matter progresses to the atomic level, so too should their models and their explanations of stability and change.

In high school, students can model more complex systems and comprehend more subtle issues of stability or of sudden or gradual change over time.