How each lesson works

Each unit is built around a real puzzle (its driving question) that students work out through hands-on investigations, the way scientists do. There are two kinds of lesson:

1. Investigation lessons — each has a lesson question and takes one to several class days (about 45 minutes a day). Read the teacher’s lesson plan first: it has the steps, materials, timing and discussion prompts. Then print the student pages (procedures and work pages). Teacher references and answer keys are at the bottom of the lesson.
2. Science Literacy readings — about once a week students read a short collection from the Student Reader on their own, learn the words to know, complete the exercise page and talk it over.
3. Each unit ends with a words quiz.

Plan on about 45 minutes a day, four or five days a week. Some investigations need simple materials — the plan lists them, and the guide often suggests alternatives. This course has 125 lessons in 6 units, which fills a school year at that pace.

The units

• Unit 1: Chemical Reactions and Matter — 19 lessons and a quiz
  How can we make something new that was not there before?
• Unit 2: Chemical Reactions and Energy — 15 lessons and a quiz
  How can we use chemical reactions to design a solution to a problem?
• Unit 3: Metabolic Reactions — 21 lessons and a quiz
  How do things inside our bodies work together to make us feel the way we do?
• Unit 4: Matter Cycling and Photosynthesis — 21 lessons and a quiz
  Where does food come from, and where does it go next?
• Unit 5: Ecosystem Dynamics — 25 lessons and a quiz
  How does changing an ecosystem affect what lives there?
• Unit 6: Earth’s Resources and Human Impact — 24 lessons and a quiz
  How do changes in the Earth’s system impact our communities, and what can we do about it?