The teacher textbook for this preferred integrated higher level STEAM program does not contain the STEM project content but does cross reference to it. This is because there are vignettes for each segment to be completed together with higher level content in expository text than for the STEAM into NGSS program. The focus and intention of each and every Exploration lesson, and its components, is to engage students in answering questions about the natural world and solving engineering problems that they are interested in answering, in a self-directed manner with guidance and coaching from teachers. The methods used tap into, develop and refine students' innate inclinations to look for patterns and cause-and-effect relationships in their observations of phenomena and use them to create possible explanations, and make and test predictions. Students in K-5 have the capacity for sophisticated critical thinking.
It takes careful teacher facilitation to help students develop their ability to appraise evidence, data, models and explanations. The lessons in this curriculum are designed to assist teachers in that endeavor.
The framework intentionally focuses on a limited set of core ideas with deep possibilities for finding connections among them including, but not limited to, the cross-cutting concepts of patterns, cause and effect, scale proportion and quantity, systems and system models, energy and matter: flows, cycles and conservation, structure and function and stability and change. As students transition from grade to grade, they have opportunities for building on prior knowledge and deeper exploration of each idea.
In summary, you will use the following core components:
> STEM project guide -provides initial anchoring phenomenon and conceptual understanding
> Combined by Segment Textbook – includes
> Vignettes
> Science Is A Verb
> Traditional Lesson
> Arts
> Word Wall
> Natural Science
> Amelia Rose
> Science Makers Within this higher level integrated NGSS aligned project based STEAM program, students follow the DAPIC process and lead. Students design, assess, plan, implement and communicate; teachers or parents are facilitators. TPS provide personalized pacing, materials kits and support throughout the school year.
STEAM Exploration Teacher Edition – Grade 4 Segment 3
$25.51
STEAM Explorations is the higher level TPS integrated curriculum and has been developed to create a strong foundation of the knowledge and skills laid out in the framework, helping prepare students to enthusiastically and confidently approach progressively more advanced concepts and skills across the grades. Each lesson addresses a performance expectation in one of the three major science disciplines, Life Science, Physical Science and Earth and Space Sciences which is the vehicle through which the performance expectation will be executed, a disciplinary core idea and a cross-cutting concept. Lessons are grouped sequentially by common disciplinary core ideas. Students learn to practice science through processes used by scientists and engineers. STEAM Exploration lessons are constructed to invite students in to explore a concept. The program comprises a STEM project guide, Teacher and Student by Segment texts, Vignettes, 3 tiered assessments with rubrics, and online assessment tools and libraries; TPS STEAM Science/ELA/Math/Crosscutting/Special education PSHE Library and Reteach and After school projects.
By making observations of natural phenomena, constructing simple models of a system or phenomenon that can be used to test their ideas, analyzing data, obtaining information from reliable resources or formulating an argument supported by evidence.
Focus questions and suggested data collection formats are used to guide, but not limit, their investigations. A brief reading introduces and provides some background on the topic and raises questions. Focus questions are used to rouse curiosity, initiate thinking and to guide the direction of investigation, the interpretation of collected data and the formulation of arguments.
| Format | Softback Black & White |
|---|---|
| State | California, National |
| STEAM Program | > Science, > Next Generation Science Standards – Integrated Level 2 (STEAM Exploration) |
| Edition | Teacher Edition Book |
| Grade | Elementary, Grade 4 |