Next Gen Science Unit

We just finished our first science unit based on the Next Generation Science Standards!  I first looked  through these new standards last spring when my school decided to adopt them, and I admit I was totally overwhelmed.  These standards are much more in depth than our previous science standards.  Instead of basic statements about what students should be able to do and understand, they include performance expectations, science and engineering practices, and disciplinary core ideas which map specific skills in a progression from Kindergarten through high school.

It took me awhile to get familiar with their organization and expectations.   In addition, because the Next Gen Standards are still very new, there are few resources to support their implementation.  Nevertheless, I decided to try planning our first unit based on the Structure, Function, and Processing standards which focus on plants and animals.

One of the "crosscutting concepts" for these foundational standards is that "Patterns in the natural world can be observed, used to describe phenomena, and used as evidence."  It took me a few reads to figure out that, basically, my kiddos should be able to recognize the patterns in life cycles and offspring-parent relationships and create some generalizations about why these patterns exist. I gathered a number of resources to expose my students to the life cycles of plants and animals -- including pictures, books, and real live plants. We began to make charts and take notes about how plants and animals are "like, but not exactly like, their parents."

The kiddos caught on very quickly!  They were able to connect seeds to their flowers or fruits by looking at their color, shape, or size.  (I used these great cards from the Montessori Print Shop for a few activities!)  They noticed the similarities and acknowledged the differences between baby animals and their parents in books like BIG & Little by Marilyn Easton.  (I incorporated these Adult and Baby Animal Pictures from TeachersPayTeachers for some hands-on practice.)

Then we began to consider what behaviors in baby animals helped them to survive. Although the kiddos quickly recognized how parents help their babies, it took some time to realize what the babies were doing to initiate these behaviors.  We read more books and made more observations to see how the babies signaled their parents that they were hungry or needed help.  I was able to integrate both fiction and nonfiction books into this unit which was great.  Books like Owl Babies and Is Your Mama a Llama? were actually perfect for highlighting how baby animals and their parents communicate.

I wouldn't say this was a perfect unit by any means, but the kiddos seemed to enjoy it and get some new knowledge out of it.  I created an assessment to check their understanding and they all did quite well.  In the Spring, I'm going to tackle the other Structure, Function and Processing Performance Expectation: 

Use materials to design a solution to a human problem by mimicking how plants and/or animals use their external parts to help them survive, grow, and meet their needs.  I'm looking forward to building on the foundation we built through this first unit!