Download 5th Grade Science Curriculum Overview

5th Grade Science
Curriculum Overview
Philosophy and Common Beliefs
Science Curriculum Philosophy Statement
Northbrook/Glenview District 30 utilizes a rigorous science curriculum built on essential
questions, Project 2061 learning goals, formative and summative assessments, and research
on effective teaching and learning practices. The goal of the science program is to increase
science literacy within all students. In a culture that is increasingly pervaded by science,
mathematics, and technology, science literacy requires understandings and habits of mind that
enable citizens to
• grasp what those enterprises are up to;
• make some sense of how the natural and designed worlds work;
• think critically and independently;
• recognize and weigh alternative explanations of events and design trade-offs; and
• deal sensibly with problems that involve evidence, numbers, patterns, logical arguments, and
uncertainties (AAAS,1993, p. xi).
The common core of learning to be achieved through this curriculum is designed to provide a
foundation upon which additional knowledge can be acquired throughout one’s lifetime.
Concepts deemed important today and believed important for tomorrow comprise the
curriculum. The essential concepts and skills contained in the curriculum meet the criteria of
having a significant value and utility. This common core of learning should provide students a
foundation for
• improving their long-term employment prospects, along with the quality of the
• nation’s workforce, and providing a base for some student to go on to specialize in
• science, mathematics, or technology or in related fields;
• assisting them in making personal, social, and political decisions;
• acquainting them with ideas that are so significant in the history of ideas or so
• pervasive in our culture as to be necessary for understanding that history and culture;
• enhancing the experiences of their student years, a time in life that is important in its own right
(AAAS, 2001, pp. 48-49).
Quality science programs require students do science. Scientific inquiry is emphasized throughout the
curriculum. Only instructional resources that support active engagement of students were selected for
inclusion in the curriculum. Students are provided significant opportunities to use scientific inquiry to
explore and explain scientific concepts. Inquiry is a multifaceted activity that involves making
observations; posing questions; examining books and other sources of information to see what is already
known; planning investigations; reviewing what is already known in light of experimental evidence, using
tools to gather, analyze, and interpret data; proposing answers, explanations, and predictions; and
communicating the results (National Research Council, 1996, p. 23).
While inquiry is emphasized, it is one of multiple instructional methods used to develop students’
knowledge, understandings, and skills. Students work extensively with physical models. Cooperative and
collaborative work experiences are also highlighted throughout the curriculum, with particular
emphasis on understanding the value of sharing findings.
References:
American Association for the Advancement of Science. (1989). Science for All Americans. New York:
Oxford University Press.
American Association for the Advancement of Science. (1993). Benchmarks for Science Literacy. New
York: Oxford University Press.
American Association for the Advancement of Science and The National Science Teachers Association
(2001). Atlas of Science Literacy. Washington, D.C.: American Association for the Advancement of
Science.
American Association for the Advancement of Science (2001). Designs for Science Literacy. New York:
Oxford University Press.
National Research Council. (1996). National Science Education Standards. Washington, D.C.: National
Academy Press.
Northbrook School District 27 White Paper (2005). Northbrook, IL.
Project 2061 Web Site: http://www.project2061.org
5th Grade Science Curriculum Maps
Unit Map—Astronomy
Essential Questions:
• What are models?
• Why are models used in science?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the models used?
• What is the shape of the earth?
• What causes day and night?
• What causes a year?
Enduring Understandings (what students should be able to understand):
• What are models
• Why models are used in science
• The strengths and weaknesses of the models used
• The shape of the earth?
• What causes day and night
• What causes a year
• In what direction does light travel
• What causes the direction to change
• When light interacts (hits) an object, the different ways it behaves
• If stars are many different sizes, some bigger than the sun, why they look so
small in the sky
• What orbits the earth
• What orbits the sun
• How the patterns of stars change throughout the night
• Why the patterns of stars in the sky appear to move across the sky
• How the patterns of stars change throughout the year
• What happens to the position of planets (relative to stars) throughout the
year
What students should know (vocabulary, facts, and information):
• The patterns of stars in the sky stay the same, although they appear to move
across the sky nightly, and different stars can be seen in different seasons.
• Planets change their positions against the background of stars.
• The earth is one of several planets that orbit the sun, and the moon orbits
around the earth.
• Stars are like the sun, some being smaller and some larger, but so far away
that they look like points of light.
• Like all planets and stars, the earth is approximately spherical in shape. The
rotation of the earth on its axis every 24 hours produces the night-and-day
cycle. To people on earth, this turning of the planet makes it seem as though
the sun, moon, planets, and stars are orbiting the earth once a day.
• Light travels and tends to maintain its direction of motion until it interacts
with an object or material. Light can be absorbed, redirected, bounced back,
or allowed to pass through.
• Geometric figures, number sequences, graphs, diagrams, sketches, number
lines, maps, and stories can be used to represent objects, events, and
processes in the real world, although such representations can never be
exact in every detail
Skills (what students should be able to do):
• Understand why a map is a considered a model
• Identify some strengths and limitations of models (For most students, this
may be the first time they think about a map as a model. There ability to
think about strengths and weaknesses may be very limited. This is a skill that
will improve over time as they are exposed to many more models.)
• Use models to explain the earth is spherical.
LIGHT
Light Travels in a Straight Line
• Position the index cards with the holes lined up in a straight line
• Sketch the path of light moving in a straight line through the holes
• Articulate that light travels in a straight line
Mirrors and Reflection
• Understand that the light is not traveling in a straight line because it has been
redirected by the mirror
• Communicate that the light travels in a straight line until in interacts/hits the
mirror--then it changes direction and travels in a straight line
Light Interaction
• Articulate that light can pass through, be bent, and be absorbed by materials
(liquids and air)
• Explain light travels in a straight line until it interacts with an object
• Show that once light interacts with an object, its path will either pass through
the object and continue in the same direction, be bent in a different direction,
or be absorbed
Accurately sketch the path of light through each cup to show its interaction
with the liquid
• Sketch clear, detailed, and understandable drawings of the experiment
• Include descriptive labels, appropriate size, and appropriate amount of detail
on all sketches
Reviewing the Behavior of Light
• Accurately sketch the path of light through/hitting various materials
• Independently articulate that when light hits an object it either passes
through, is absorbed, is bent (redirected), or bounced back (reflected)
Day, Night, and Years
• Understand how the movement of the earth on its axis produces day and
night
• Using a model show that only half of the earth can be lit by the sun at one
time
DAY, NIGHT, AND YEARS
Days and Years
• Accurately define day and year and understand the scientific meaning of the
words
• Understand that a rotating sphere and a light source can simulate day and
night. Do students understand that the lit part of the model represents day
and the dark part represents night.
• Know that the nine planets orbit the sun (Students tend to be aware of the
existence of planets. Do they understand that they orbit the sun?)
Modeling Planet Sizes
• Understand how the model of the planets is like the real thing (it represents
relative size of the planets) and how it is different from the real thing (it’s
two-dimensional, isn’t the actual size)
• Understand the benefit of modeling the size of the planets
• Use numerical data to compare the sizes of two planets
• Understand that the sun is closer than any other star
• Explain that other stars are much larger than the sun but look tiny because
they are so far away
Clay Models of Earth
• Understand how the model of the earth/moon is like the real thing (it
represents relative size and relative distance)
• Understand how it is different from the real thing (it’s not in motion--moon
orbiting earth, composition is different, it’s not the actual size/distance)
• Describe the orbit of the moon.
• Understand that the moon does not produce its own light—it’s light reflected
from the sun
• Know that the moon orbits the earth
Scale and Relative Distance and Toilet Paper Model of Solar System
•
Understand how the toilet paper model is like the real thing (it represents
relative distance of the planets)
•
•
Understand how the model is different from the real thing (Examples: it
doesn’t show relative size of planets--they are all dots; it has all planets lined
up on one side of sun--some students won’t know this and will learn about
STARS
The Sky in Motion
• Know that stars appear to move across the sky throughout the night
As the Earth Turns
• Understand that the stars appear to move to a person on earth
• Understand that just as in the model, the stars are in fixed positions in the
sky
•
By comparing the two models, show that the stars patterns are in fixed
positions, but they all appear to move westward throughout the night
• Clearly articulate that the rotation of the earth, not the sun, is producing day
and night (sunrise/sunset)
Stars throughout the Year
• Know that patterns of stars can be seen in different locations within the sky
during different months
• Observe different star patterns being visible in different months/seasons
Planet Watch
• Understand the model illustrates planets changing their position against the
background of stars. Teachers most likely need to question students as they
are working. Sample questions: What are you learning from this activity?
What does the model show you?
• Generalize to the idea that the planets are continually changing their
positions against the background of stars.
Unit Map—Body Systems
Essential Questions:
• How do the parts of an animal relate to its needs and habitat?
• How are systems in the human body like systems in other animals?
• How do the skeletal and muscular systems work together to create
movement?
• How do the digestive and circulatory systems work together to get nutrients
(food) to the cells?
• How do the respiratory and circulatory systems work together to get oxygen
to the cells?
• What are “scientific investigations?”
Enduring Understandings (what students should be able to understand):
• What the skeletal system does
• What the muscular system does and how it works
• What the circulatory system does and how it works
•
•
•
•
•
What the digestive system does and how it works
What the smallest structure that carries on the functions (circulation,
digestion and respiration) of life is
How is food turned into substances that can be used by the cell
How cells throughout the body get oxygen needed for life
What the respiratory system does and how it works
What students should know (vocabulary, facts, and information):
• Scientific investigations may take many different forms, including observing
what things are like or what is happening somewhere, collecting specimens
for analysis, and doing experiments. Investigations can focus on physical,
biological, and social questions.
• Scientists’ explanations about what happens in the world come partly from
what they observe, partly from what they think. Sometimes scientists have
different explanations for the same set of observations. That usually leads to
their making more observations to resolve the differences.
• Features used for grouping depend on the purpose of the grouping.
• Like other animals, human beings have body systems for obtaining and
providing energy, defense, reproduction, and the coordination of body
functions.
• From food, people obtain energy and materials for body repair and growth.
The undigestible parts of food are eliminated.
• By breathing, people take in oxygen they need to live.
• For the body to use food for energy and building materials, the food must
first be digested into molecules that are absorbed and transported to cells.
• To burn food for the release of energy stored in it, oxygen must be supplied
to the cells, and carbon dioxide removed. Lungs take in oxygen for the
combustion of food and they eliminate the carbon dioxide. The urinary
system disposes of dissolved waste molecules, the intestinal tract removes
solid wastes, and the skin and lungs rid the body of heat energy. The
circulatory system moves all these substances to or from cells where they are
needed or produced, responding to changing demands.
• Offer reasons for their findings and consider reasons suggested by others.
• Understand that animals have parts well suited to the places they live in and
to their needs. For example, rabbits radiate heat through their ears, and
those living in hotter climates have larger ears to radiate heat more
efficiently. Thus, given a list of animals, one of which is clearly getter adapted
to a given environment, understand that that is the animal, which lives in that
environment.
• The human organism has systems for digestion, respiration, reproduction,
circulation, excretion, movement, control and coordination, and for
protection from disease. The systems interact with one another.
Skills (what students should be able to do):
The Mysterious Object
• Recognize that observational work of specimens constitutes a scientific
investigation
• Make clear and understandable observations
• Organize notebook entries so they are understandable at a later date (title
and date)
• Clearly identify their inferences as a guesses and keep them separate from
their observations
• Support their inferences with observations made of the mystery object
The Clues
• Make sketches that accurately portray the features of an object
• Make clear and understandable observations
• Include quantitative observations
• Make inferences supported by observations and prior knowledge
• Develop logical explanations about where the bones came from
• Use the evidence from the activity to make inferences
Human Bones
• Determine where bones exist and their shape
•
Discuss and relate the function with the location and shape of the bones
Major Bone Groups
• Locate the six major bone groups in the outline of the human body
• Explain the functions of the six major bone groups
•
Compare and contrast human bones with other animal bones
• Apply knowledge from the study of human bones to classify bones from their
mystery object
• Recognize the benefit of grouping the bones by “bone groups” rather than
size or shape
Teeth and Jaws
• Use the features of the teeth (size and placement) to make reasonable
inferences about whether the animal is an omnivore, herbivore, or carnivore
• Understand teeth are grouped according to structure and function
Comparing Animal Skeletons
• Make reasonable inferences and observations about the way an animal
moves, the kind of food it eats, and how it behaves in its habitat based on
prior knowledge and observations of the skeleton cards
• Use evidence to support their inferences
• Do students connect the structure of the animal to its needs (what it eats and
how it moves)?
Human Bones Revisited
• Include the major bone groups in bone drawings
• Place the bones in appropriate positions
• Include some type of notation for joints in drawings (Do the drawings show
bones connected or are the bones all “floating” with the body?)
Chicken Wing Dissection
• Find bones, muscles, and joints (and tendons and ligaments) in the chicken
wing
• Explain how the bones and muscles (and tendons and ligaments) work as a
system to facilitate movement of the chicken wing
HUMAN BODY SYSTEMS
What Are Cells?
• Show an understanding that all living things, including the human body, are
made up of cells?
• Understand that the cell is the smallest structure of life
Blood and Heart
•
Understand cells come together to form specialized tissues that work
together to perform a certain function
• Understand that supplies needed by the cells are carried through the body by
the blood
• See that the structure of the heart allows is to pump blood throughout the
body
• Use the numerical data collected to identify relationships between heart rate
and pulse rate
The Transportation System
•
Understand the functions of the circulatory system
• Understand how the structures of the circulatory system (arteries, veins and
capillaries) have different jobs, but that all the structures are required to
carry out the functions of the circulatory system
• Understand that the supplies needed by the body are carried to body cells by
the blood
• Draw detailed and labeled illustrations
Food and Fuel
• Understand that food is moved through the digestive system rather than
pulled down by gravity or that it does not just fall through the digestive tract.
• Understand that peristalsis is the process that moves food through the
digestive system
• Describe the path of food through the digestive system
What Happens in Digestion?
• Identify that food is broken down chemically as well as mechanically
• Understand that both chemical and mechanical breakdown occur throughout
the digestive system
• Understand the role of enzymes in chemical digestion
How Does Food Get Out?
• Explain the process by which substances move through a membrane
• Understand that the food needed by the body cells is transported in the
circulatory system
Breathing
• Understand how the parts of the respiratory system work together to supply
the body with oxygen
• Explain how air gets into the body
• Explain the connection between the respiratory system to the circulatory
system
Getting the Most Out of Your Air and Food
• Understand the concept of surface area and its importance in the body’s
systems
• Understand the role of the process of diffusion in obtaining food and oxygen
What Goes in Must Come Out
• Define a body system as a group of organs that work together
• Understand the interconnectedness of the circulatory, digestive and
respiratory systems