What is your pre-scientist learning in science class?
Unfortunately, the answer is not so straightforward, and varies by state. If matched, you should receive information via email about the science topics taught in your pre-scientist’s class.
Most of our LPS teachers teach the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). The NGSS standards, which were released in 2013, are similar to the more familiar Common Core English/language arts and math standards in two main ways:
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- – Both standards focus on building college and career readiness skills, commonly referred to as 21st century skills.
- – Both have been developed for national implementation. Previously, individual states created science standards that applied only to their state, which resulted in national discrepancies in rigor as well as content covered.
Here’s where it gets complicated. The Next Generation Science Standards have not been adopted by all states, nor is there a firm implementation plan set to ensure they will be by a certain year. To see what middle school students might be learning in their science class, click here and click on middle school, then find your field of interest in the drop-down menu.
An Explanation of the NGSS
The NGSS teach the core concepts of Physical Science, Life Science, Earth and Space Science, and Engineering, and focus on connecting concepts that span these branches of science.
For example, an Energy and Matter unit in middle school could teach the crosscutting concept that energy is conserved and can be tracked through a system using Earth and Life science disciplines. More specifically, students could use the practice of developing and using models to describe phenomena to describe how food is rearranged through chemical reactions that release energy as the matter moves through an organism. They could then connect this system to a model showing the cycling of water through the Earth’s system driven by energy from the sun.
Without NGSS, it is unlikely that life science and earth science would have been explicitly taught in the same unit; these new standards prioritize understanding foundational concept building skills that can be applied from one discipline to another. The NGSS calls for students to be much more actively engaged in building their knowledge of science.
Each year, students being taught the NGSS build on what they learned previously so that they will end up with a comprehensive understanding of different scientific fields and how they interact with one another.
Here is a short fact sheet about NGSS.