The Next Generation Science Standards, now adopted by 20 states and the District of Columbia, signaled a sea change in STEM education when they debuted in 2013. But teachers have struggled to find quality materials that align with the NGSS emphasis on discovery, open-ended investigations, engineering design challenges, and such crosscutting concepts as energy systems.

As Susan McClarty, a 6th and 7th grade science teacher in Broken Arrow, Okla., told Education Week (8/28/2019), “We were kind of wading through water, trying to create something out of nothing.”

Now she and other swamped middle-school STEM teachers can avail themselves of a new, open-source science curriculum that McClarty’s school piloted last year: OpenSciEd.  Three units were initially available – 6th grade thermal energy, 7th grade metabolic reactions, and 8th grade sound waves. All were rated high quality by the peer review panel at Achieve, a nonprofit organization that helped states write the NGSS, EdWeek reports.

Backed by such funders as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation of New York, OpenSciEd now has 22 units and 35,000 teachers, with the full sequence due out by winter 2022.

The NGSS standards flip the traditional model of science on its head. Instead of memorizing facts, students ask questions about why the world around them works the way it doe and discover the principles of science that explain these phenomena.

For example, the OpenSciEd 6th-grade unit on thermal energy begins with a question: How can cups keep drinks warm or cool? Similarly, the 7th grade unit on sound waves doesn’t start by explaining the phenomenon but instead asks: Why do car windows vibrate when the stereo is turned up?

Teachers still must cover content in the physical, life, earth, and space science, and in engineering. But lessons are also supposed to draw connections between these subjects, exploring big ideas about the way science works. These “crosscutting concepts” include themes like cause and effect, systems, and patterns.

Teachers in the pilot program received professional development and coaching. Teacher training instructions – also open-source – are released concurrently with units.

Filed under: For Teachers, Grades 6-8, K-12 Education News, Special Features, Web Resources

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