6th to 8th Grade - Gateway 3

The materials reviewed for Grades 6-8 provide strategies for informing all stakeholders, including students, parents, or caregivers about the program and suggestions for how they can help support student progress and achievement.

All of the units across the series have a document in the Overview Materials entitled Home Communication. This document is a letter to the parents/guardians and provides information including a brief overview of the content contained in the unit and a description of any design challenges found within the unit. For example, in Grade 8, Unit 8.1: Contact Forces, the home communication letter describes how students make models over the course of the unit and then apply what they’ve learned in the design challenge to protect an object of their choice. The home communication letter also contains a section called Helping your child make sense of their learning that contains prompts for parents to have discussions with their student that is specific to the content within the unit, such as “Ask how they might have arrived at a particular conclusion.” It also contains a section called Having conversations about science, which has prompts for discussing broad ideas in science, such as “Encourage your child’s curiosity through talking about their own noticings and wonderings when running errands or on a walk.” 

In another example, in Grade 7, Unit 7.3: Metabolic Reactions, the home communication letter states “Provide your child space and time to think aloud with a drawing, objects, or their voice about different (maybe conflicting) ideas for processing. Sometimes processing ideas won’t lead to a clear “answer” or solution yet.”

The OpenSciEd 6-8 science materials designated for each grade are feasible and flexible for one school year. The materials provide pacing information throughout the Unit Overview Teacher, Teacher Background Knowledge tab  including at the unit and lesson levels. Additional macro-pacing information is included in the Scope and Sequence document and the OpenSciEd Middle School Course Overview document on the OpenSciEd website. Grade-level units are designed to be completed within a 180-day school year if periods are 45 minutes each. Additionally, specific details for extending or condensing units and lessons are provided in the Teacher Background Knowledge section, in the event that scheduling allows for additional instruction or needs to be shortened due to lack of time.

At the beginning of each unit, in the Unit Overview, a Unit Storyline is provided. This storyline provides pacing information for each lesson. For example, the Grade 6, Unit 6.4: Plate Tectonics & Rock Cycling, the Unit Storyline states that Lesson 1 should take four days. At the beginning of each lesson, the number of days is noted, followed by a Learning Plan Snapshot. The Learning Plan Snapshot details each part of the lesson by minute and day. For example, in Grade 8, Unit 8.2, Lesson 4: How do the vibrations of the sound source compare for louder versus softer sounds?, the lesson takes two days. Day 1 has five parts ranging in time from 5-50 minutes each. Day 2 has four parts ranging in time from 7-15 minutes each. In the OpenSciEd Middle School Course Overview additional detail is provided about the length of time each unit will take. For example, in Grade 7, Unit 7.6: Earth’s Resources & Human Impact will take 33 days. In a different chart, the total number of days for the entire school year is provided with Grade 6 taking 169 days, Grade 7 taking 170 days and Grade 8 taking 174 days. This document also notes that lessons are designed for 45-minute class periods and may last multiple days. 

OpenSciEd provides a detailed Scope and Sequence of the Grade 6-8 materials. This Scope and Sequence details the order in which units are intended to be taught, additional guidance about teaching units out of sequence, directions for teaching “intentionally developed” vs. “not a focus” SEPs and CCCs, and a detailed appendix of how to integrate and address NGSS elements throughout the 6-8 science materials. For example, a chart is provided for each grade level and NGSS element. The components of the chart note the level to which each element should be addressed in each unit throughout the grade level. 

In the Teacher Background Knowledge tab, there are two sections that address making adjustments for time or scheduling constraints. The first section is titled, How will I need to modify the unit if taught out of sequence?. This information provides suggestions to teachers that will help them bridge the gaps of missed information caused by skipping units or jumping ahead in the sequence. For example, in Grade 7, Unit 7.3: Metabolic Reactions, states, “If this unit is taught before Unknown material with identifier: te, support will be needed around the nature of matter so that students see all matter as made of particles.” The second section is titled, How do I shorten or condense the unit if needed? How can I extend the unit if needed?. In this section of the Teacher Background Knowledge tab, specific lessons are noted and guidance for either extending or shortening these lessons is provided. For example, in Grade 8, Unit 8.6: Natural Selection, suggests, “Lesson 7: If your high school uses the Galapagos finch case as an anchoring phenomenon, consider just using the fish, moths, mustard plants, and swallows cases in this unit.” In a separate list of lessons, it suggests, “Lesson 15: If time allows, consider making this a two-day lesson and giving students more time to reflect on their Progress Trackers.” In just one unit, in Grade 7, Unit 7.5: Ecosystem Dynamics & Biodiversity, the Teacher Background Knowledge section provides a pacing decision-making flowchart. This chart provides different pathways teachers can opt to take if they would like to extend or condense the unit. Materials state,” The core of this unit is Lessons 1-18, which requires 33 instructional class periods. There are two options to extend students' learning beyond Lesson 18. You will need to make decisions based on your student's interests and the instructional time you have available.” This flowchart includes additional information about the number of class periods needed to complete a specific pathway. The shortest pathway requires 33 class periods and the longest pathway will add an additional five class periods.

Additional suggestions and guidance for extending or condensing lessons come intermittently throughout individual lessons. There are sections labeled, Additional Guidance and Alternative Activity. While not all of the suggestions provided in these spaces address pacing, in some instances they do. For example, in Grade 6, Unit 6.6, Lesson 4: Why is there blood in all of these places in the body?, an Alternative Activity box suggests that students independently research answers to their questions as home learning. In Grade 8, Unit 8.4, Lesson 9: Why do the Moon and Sun appear to change color near the horizon?, an Additional Guidance box encourages teachers not to dwell on a concept that is not central to the lesson.

The materials reviewed for Grades 6-8 include assessments that offer accommodations that allow students to demonstrate their knowledge and skills without changing the content of the assessment. 

Throughout the units, teachers are provided with suggestions for viewing so that all students are able to see explanations, demonstrations, and other classroom activities leading to the assessment. These suggestions are provided in the teacher facing materials in the Unit Overview and Plan tabs. 

In the summative assessments present in all units, some provide alternate assessments. For example, in Unit 8.1: Contact Forces, two assessments are provided that are similar in content yet one is designed for students capable of a more challenging assessment. In Unit 7.3: Metabolic Reactions, two similar assessments are provided yet one is modified to include more information for students who may struggle in processing and reading, and for students who have other disabilities. While these options occur in some instances, they are not consistently present across formative or summative assessment opportunities.

All assessments are open-ended in nature and allow for teachers to use their discretion in assessing knowledge of content and mastery. Some assessments have rubrics available to support the teacher’s interpretation, but not consistently for all assessments.

All of the summative assessment opportunities are provided to the teacher in English and, in some instances, Spanish versions are available. 

The materials reviewed for Grades 6-8 include varied approaches to learning tasks over time and variety in how students are expected to demonstrate their learning with opportunities for students to monitor their learning. Students engage in a variety of learning activities throughout the series including initial thinking, investigations, discussions, engineering, modeling, questioning, readings, revising thinking, and assessments. In addition to engaging in multiple modes of learning, students are given a variety of opportunities to provide and receive feedback from peers and teachers throughout the materials. Every unit includes specific guidance and suggestions about how and when to use self and peer-assessment opportunities. Boxes titled Attending to Equity are included within the Learning Plan tabs in many lessons to make additional suggestions for providing support and feedback to students.

The materials provide multi-modal opportunities for students to question, investigate, sense-make, and problem-solve using a variety of formats and methods. Throughout all units, students are given the opportunity to participate in partner discussions, initial modeling, brainstorming questions, investigations, revising models, class discussions, peer-to-peer feedback, the engineering design process, and both formative and summative assessment opportunities. Examples include:

• In Lesson 1 of every unit, students generate questions to add to the Driving Question Board (DQB) for the unit. The DQB is revisited throughout the unit and celebrated at the end of the unit. For example, in Grade 6, Unit 6.1, Lesson 1: How can something act like a mirror and a window at the same time?, students generate questions about the one-way mirror/box model phenomenon. In Lesson 8: Why do we sometimes see different things when looking at the same object?, students revisit the DQB to document the questions that have been answered during the unit and reflect on learning. 

• In Grade 6, Unit 6.3, Lesson 6: How can we explain the movement of air in a hail cloud?, the Attending to Equity box notes, “This assessment encourages students to demonstrate their understanding of key skills and concepts from the unit so far by scaffolding the construction of a written explanation. Allowing students to use different modalities will provide more access for students to present their understandings. Some students may benefit from using other modalities, such as drawing to show their thinking for any or all of the questions on the assessment. Consider allowing some students to present their answers verbally as another student scribes their thinking on paper; this would allow students to also use gestures to help articulate their understanding about how air behaves and rises in a cloud.”

The materials provide opportunities for students to share their thinking, to compare their thinking with other students or to new ideas presented in the learning opportunities, to demonstrate changes in their thinking over time, and to apply their understanding in new contexts. All units contain opportunities for students to share initial ideas and revise those ideas over time. Students are given multiple opportunities to discuss ideas with partners before being asked to share ideas with the whole class. Examples include:

• In Grade 6, Unit 6.2, Lesson 1: Why does the temperature of the liquid in some cup systems change more than in others?, students are asked to brainstorm how to collect evidence to support a claim. They are then given time to “turn and talk” with a partner about their ideas. Student ideas are collected in a class discussion and used in the subsequent investigation activities.

•  In Grade 7, Unit 7.4: Matter Cycling & Photosynthesis, students develop an initial list of possible candidates for food molecules in plants. This model is revisited and revised in Lesson 3 as students explore the composition of air molecules. The question is updated to read, “What candidates are possible sources for parts of food molecules in plants?” After additional investigating and evidence collection, students summarize their learning in a final informational model activity in Lesson 8. In this activity, students are expected to use learning from Lessons 1-7 to show an understanding of how plants get their food molecules and where the food molecules come from.

The materials provide opportunities for students to engage in ongoing review, practice, self-reflection, and feedback. Across the series, the materials include a variety of self-assessment opportunities including, self-assessment for classroom discussions, teamwork self-assessment, general self-assessment, and giving and receiving feedback self-assessment. Guidance for use of the student self-assessment discussion rubric states that it “can be used anytime after a discussion to help students reflect on their participation in the class that day.” Materials suggest using this tool at least once a week or every other week. 

• In Grade 8, Unit 8.2, Lesson 5: How do the vibrations from a sound source compare for higher-pitch versus lower-pitch sounds?, students sit in a Scientist Circle to have a “Building Understandings Discussion about Frequency and Pitch.” The discussion rubric can be used by students to reflect on their participation in this discussion.

In addition to rubrics, the materials provide opportunities for students to use a Progress Tracker to reflect on their learning throughout the unit. Progress Trackers are updated throughout the unit with new learning and ideas. 

• In Grade 7, Unit 7.5: Ecosystem Dynamics & Biodiversity, students update their Progress Tracker in Lessons 3, 4, 8, 9, 11, and 18.

The materials include guidance for multiple feedback strategies, such as oral and/or written feedback. Teachers have opportunities throughout the learning materials to provide feedback to students in a variety of ways. Examples include:

• In Grade 6, Unit 6.2, Lesson 16: How can we design a cup system to slow energy transfer into the liquid inside it?, teachers provide feedback to groups about their first cup designs. Teacher guidance suggests, “Ask each group to review their peer feedback. This is a prime opportunity to share your feedback on each group’s first design.”

• In Grade 7, Unit 7.2, Lesson 6: How can we redesign our homemade flameless heater?, students will submit their design solutions for their homemade flameless heaters. After evaluating themselves using the Engineering Design Rubric, teachers use the same rubric to provide feedback on student designs. This feedback should be used for improvement, not assessment.

• In Grade 8, Unit 8.3, Lesson 7: How does changing the distance between two magnets affect the amount of energy transferred out of the field?, teachers are instructed to, “leave feedback in the form of noticings and wonderings in the student notebooks, for any area of their investigation plan that student did not develop fully...”

The materials also include guidance for multiple strategies for peer or teacher feedback. Included in the Unit Overview Tab for each unit is a chart called, Overall Unit Assessment. This chart lists opportunities for peer feedback. An entry at the end of these charts is titled, Peer Feedback Facilitation: A Guide. This entry provides guidance on when to use peer-to-peer feedback opportunities. Examples include

• In Grade 6, Unit 6.4: Plate Techtonics & Rock Cycling, the Overall Unit Assessment chart states, “Peer feedback works best for Lessons 8, 10, 13, and 14 during the consensus moments where students are sharing their consensus models, or after an investigation where students share what they figured out with peers.” In general, the materials suggest using peer-to-peer feedback “after students complete substantial meaningful work.”

• In Grade 8, Unit 8.1, Lesson 11: What can we design to better protect objects in a collision?, students are given the opportunity to receive feedback from a partner about their protective device designs. Students will take turns over the course of eight minutes to provide feedback to their partner. Students will use the questions on Slide H to guide their feedback discussions. Students are then encouraged to take their designs home to receive additional feedback from family members.

Students have opportunities to monitor their own progress based on feedback and self-reflection. The materials provide multiple opportunities for students to monitor their own progress based on feedback and self-reflection. Examples include:

• In Grade 6, Unit 6.5, Lesson 2: Where do tsunamis happen and what causes them?, students are instructed to, “use a different colored pencil to revise the map they made their prediction on Tsunami Predictions to include what they have now figured out about where tsunamis occur. Then, have students write a quick explanation for why they made changes to their initial predictions.”

Students are also able to monitor and move their own learning. Teachers are provided suggestions for how to help students monitor and move their learning in boxes throughout the materials titled Attending to Equity. These boxes provide suggestions for ways teachers can engage students at all learning levels in self-monitoring and growth. An example:

• In Grade 7, Unit 7.1, Lesson 6: How can we explain another phenomenon where gas bubbles appear from combining different substances together?, students are provided with sentence starters to guide an argument writing task. Students are also encouraged to color code where the information needed to fill in provided sentence stems can be found (e.g., “adding a yellow-colored note to the first page of Explaining another phenomenon or Alternate: Explaining another phenomenon”).

The materials reviewed for Grades 6-8 include opportunities for teachers to use a variety of grouping strategies. 

Lessons in all units across the series use a variety of grouping strategies including independent think time, turn-and-talk with a partner, small group activities, whole-class discussions, investigations, and demonstrations. Guidance for grouping strategies can be found in a few different places depending on the activity, availability of materials, or nature of the task. These locations often include the Unit Storyline, Materials List/Preparation Information, general lesson guidance throughout a lesson in the Unit Overview and Learning Plans, and Attending to Equity boxes in the margins of lessons. Examples include:

• In Grade 6, Unit 6.1, Lesson 7: Why do the music student and the teacher see the music student but the music student can’t see the teacher?, students work as a whole group to create a class explanation for why a teacher is able to see the music student. Students are then given the opportunity to write their own explanations based on what was shared during the whole class discussion and co-created explanations. Finally, students have the opportunity to share their explanations with a peer and receive feedback to inform their revision.

• In Grade 7, Unit 7.3, Lesson 2: Can we see anything inside M’Kenna that looks different?, grouping guidance states, “For those students whom you know will benefit from additional support with image analysis, gather them into a small group to facilitate a more structured analysis of the endoscopy images. You may elect to open the invitation to the whole class for those who would like additional guidance.”

• In Grade 8, Unit 8.2, Lesson 11: How does sound make matter around us move?, the box states, “Try to take the time to plan partnerships rather than just telling the students, ‘Everyone find a partner to work with,’ which can take longer to get organized, leave students feeling excluded, and/or result in unproductive pairings. You could assign specific partners that you’ve chosen based on who will work well together (i.e., not the highest functioning students with the most in need of help, but those students who will be able to teach and learn from each other as a balanced team). Or, you could randomly choose partners for the students, which at least takes the social pressure off of them.”

• In Grade 8, Unit 8.5, Lesson 1: How do organisms get their differences?, students start the lesson by independently recording noticings and wonderings about bull photos. Students are then asked to turn and talk with a partner about their observations. Finally, the teacher facilitates a whole group discussion about student ideas. This is a common routine throughout the series.

Each lesson contains a materials list with preparation instructions. In lessons that extend multiple days and/or include specific demonstrations or lab activities/materials, grouping information is provided. For example: 

• In Grade 6, Unit 6.6, Lesson 4: Why is there blood in all of these places in the body?, Days 1 and 2 group size states, “Divide your class by the number of microscopes available.” 

• In Grade 7, Unit 7.4, Lesson 11: Why don’t plants die when they can’t make food?, the grouping information for Day 1 is three students per group.

• In Grade 8, Unit 8.3, Lesson 1: What causes a speaker to vibrate?, the materials list notes that the group size on Days 1 and 2 is the whole class.

Guidance is embedded throughout each lesson to indicate when and how students should be grouped. This guidance comes in the general flow of the lesson. For example, in Grade 6, Unit 6.5, Lesson 8: Which emergency communication systems are the most reliable in a hazard?, teacher guidance states, “Have students gather in small groups, either with one device or each individually with a device.”

Sometimes, grouping information is included in the Unit Storyline at the start of each Unit Overview tab. For example, in the Unit Storyline information for Grade 7, Unit 7.5, Lesson 17: How can we redesign the way land is used in Indonesia to support orangutans and people at the same time?, it states, “Working in groups of three, students use a computer simulation to redesign the way land is used in Indonesia to support orangutans and people at the same time.”

The materials reviewed for Grades 6-8 include a balance of images or information about people, representing various demographic and physical characteristics.

In general, the materials do not specifically indicate race, ethnicity, or gender. The slide shows, handouts, and assessments rarely show people or use names. Videos of people sharing their stories or imparting information vary in ethnicity, race, gender, disability, and demographics. Videos used to show experiments that may be difficult to do in a classroom for various reasons almost always show just the hands of the person performing the experiments. In most of the units there is information about how to use norms within the classroom in order to make the classroom a safe environment to engage in discourse to provide different viewpoints.  

Examples where materials provide a balance of images or information about people, representing various demographic and physical characteristics: 

• In Grade 6, Unit 6.1, Lesson 8: Why do we sometimes see different things when looking at the same object?, the assessment depicts a black woman photographer on the sidewalk and a white woman inside a building next to a window. Names are not referenced in the assessment.

• In Grade 6, Unit 6.6: Cells & Systems Materials, students learn about how the body heals itself. In Lesson 14 students review what they learned previously. Students watch a video about two students, Matt who was born with a disability, and Jeremy who had a permanent injury to his legs. Unlike the student they had been studying, Matt and Jeremy have permanent disabilities. They both enjoy playing basketball but they do so in a wheelchair. Students analyze changes to a disability icon comparing the changes between 1968 and 2010 and have a discussion about what the icons suggest about people with disabilities. Students then listen to the stories of two women: one who has an invisible disability (autism) and another whose visible disability is often overlooked (dwarfism) in the design of facilities and fashion. 

• In Grade 7, Unit 7.5, Lesson 8: Why do orangutans need so much forest space?, students run an Orangutan Energy Model. The orangutans in the model have diverse names. 

• In Grade 7, Unit 7.6: Earth’s Resources & Human Impact,  Lessons 1 and 2, students listen to water stories. One is about a place receiving too much water and the other about a place that uses too little. Students listen to additional stories from around the country including the Navajo Nation.

• In Grade 8, Unit 8.4, Lesson 1: How are we connected to the patterns we see in the sky?, there are four podcasts of people representing different races, ethnicities, and gender. In Lesson 2 there are two videos that describe Navajo and Paiute star stories.

• In Grade 8, Unit 8.5, Lesson 5: Where do the babies with extra-big muscles get that trait variation?, students create several pedigrees based on pictures of cattle and then add in chromosome information found in different cattle. The names of the cattle are varied.

• In Grade 8, Unit 8.5, Lesson 11: How can we answer the rest of our questions?, the student materials include images of students, with different arms spans, that represent different races and genders.

The materials provide limited guidance to encourage teachers to draw upon student home language to facilitate learning. Guidance on cognates to help with vocabulary is limited and mostly refers to Spanish cognates with few other examples from other languages. There are a few suggestions present for having vocabulary on the Word Wall in home languages and some suggestions about using drawings to represent vocabulary to help with language acquisition. In a few instances, the Attending to Equity box does prompt teachers to invite student home language in to use as an asset. 

Examples of the materials using and/or drawing upon student home language include: 

• In Grade 6, In Unit 6.6, Lesson 2: What do our bones, skin, and muscles do for us?, the Attending to Equity box suggests that as the class works together to develop using the word “structure” as a noun and a verb, “it may help emergent multilingual students to include a definition in their native language on the Word Wall for each use of this word.”

• In Grade 7, Unit 7.2, Lesson 3: What other chemical reactions could we use to heat up food?, the  Attending to Equity box states, “You might also intentionally group emerging multilingual students with certain peers who know the same languages or with peers whose English language development is slightly more advanced.”

• In Grade 7, Unit 7.3, Lesson 11: What happens to matter when it is burned?,  the Attending to Equity box suggests adding the working definition of fuel to the “class Word Wall so that all students can have a consensus on what the class means when using the word ‘fuel’.”  In addition, it is suggested that drawing examples of different fuels along with the names of fuels in students’ home language should also be added to the Word Wall.

• In Grade 7, Unit 7.6, Lesson 1: Why are floods and droughts happening more often?, the Attending to Equity box suggests supporting emergent multilingual students by “Asking questions in everyday language allows students to share their thinking or experiences, even if they do not have the appropriate scientific vocabulary yet. This is helpful for emergent multilingual students because by not requiring scientific words at the onset, you do not limit their participation in classroom discourse.”

• In Grade 7, Unit 7.6, Lesson 2: What would we normally expect for these places and how do we know it’s really changing?, the Attending to Equity box provides multiple strategies to support emerging multilingual students with developing new vocabulary, including making connections to cognate words when possible. “Variability is variabilidad and trend is la tendencia in Spanish. Using cognate stems like ‘vary’ or words like ‘trends’ show where the data tends to head... might be able to help emergent multilingual students. Include a drawing as well for a visual clue to distinguish the two words. Use these strategies throughout the unit for both ‘words we earn’ and ‘words we encounter.’”

• In Grade 7, Unit 7.6, Lesson 16: How are these solutions working in our communities?, the Attending to Equity box provides some suggestions to use cognates related to the vocabulary (e.g., resilience in English = resiliencia in Spanish). “Using cognates, teachers can support emerging multilingual students in making connections between new science vocabulary and their native language(s). This can reduce the vocabulary overload that they may experience in science. Teachers can display cognates by placing them on Word Walls alongside new vocabulary terms or include cognates in text using parentheticals.”

• In Grade 7, Unit 7.6, Lesson 17: What solutions work best for our school or community?, the Attending to Equity Box states, “This could be an opportunity to highlight the benefits of multilingual communication in our global world because expressing ideas across many languages can help reach larger and broader audiences. This would also be particularly beneficial if the stakeholder group(s) speak a primary language other than English. Consider encouraging your emerging multilingual students—who feel comfortable doing so—to develop a communication project that includes key messaging in their home language or multiple languages.”

• In Grade 8, Unit 8.6, Lesson 1: How could penguins and other things living today be connected to the things that lived long ago?, the Attending to Equity box refers to the “modern penguins” and “ancient penguins,” terms that will be used throughout the unit to distinguish between penguins found alive today and those found in the fossil record. “The Spanish word for modern is ‘moderna/o’, and the Spanish word for ancient is ‘antiguo/a’. Additionally, the Spanish word for penguin is ‘pingüino’. Using cognates is a helpful strategy to support emerging multilingual students.”

The materials reviewed for Grades 6-8 include limited guidance to encourage teachers to draw upon student cultural and social backgrounds to facilitate learning. There are a few examples, which make an attempt to draw upon student backgrounds. The Attending to Equity sections of the Learning Plans  for each lesson are in multiple instances connected to English Learners, but not about their or other students' backgrounds–just assisting them with certain strategies and routines (see Indicator 3q).

Examples include:

• In Grade 8, Unit 8.5, Lesson 1: How do organisms get their differences?, the following teacher guidance for this optional at-home assignment states, “at some point during this unit, your students may bring up the idea that they may (or may not) share traits with members of their families. Recall that not all your students may be living with or in touch with their biological family members and therefore would not be able to compare themselves with their parents, grandparents, siblings, and so on. In order to be sensitive to these situations, you should not direct students to explore inheritance with their families. The home learning in this lesson should be focused on nonhuman examples of trait variation, although if students bring in human examples on their own, that is OK.” 

• In Grade 6, Unit 6, Lesson 10: What do cells need to grow and make more of themselves?, the teacher guidance suggests, “Students with vegetarian or vegan diets may be familiar with agar (often sold as agar-agar) since it is a plant-based gelatin used as an alternative to animal-derived gelatin. Students of Asian descent may also be familiar with it, as it is commonly used in Asian desserts. Do not call out specific students about their prior knowledge of agar, but ask the whole class if they have ever heard of, used, or eaten agar before.”

The materials reviewed for Grades 6-8 include supports for different reading levels to ensure accessibility for students. The materials provide a guidance document that gives students questions to consider while reading and asks them to annotate as they read. This strategy is only present where students are reading articles and therefore is not present in every unit. This document is only present in Grade 6 so it functions as a scaffold for early middle school. In Grade 8, a similar strategy is present but comes in the form of a lesson-level slide titled, While You Read to serve as a reminder to students about the purpose of reading and collecting evidence. 

Examples of strategies to engage students in reading and accessing grade level science: 

• In Grade 6, Unit 6.6, Lesson 4: Why is there blood in all of these places in the body?, students are given a document called Guidance for Reading About Blood prior to reading the article. The document gives them a purpose for reading as well as directions for what to do during reading. For example, the guidance document provides questions for students to consider while they’re reading, such as “What are all those parts of the mixture doing for the body?” and “Why is blood so important that it goes everywhere?” Students are asked to underline or highlight key ideas in the text and jot down any new questions that could be added to the Driving Question Board. 

• In Grade 8, Unit 8.5, Lesson 9: How do farmers control the variation in their animals?, the slide titled “While You Read” encourages students to identify the goals of the text, claims the reading is making, evidence given to support the claims, sources of evidence and whether they are cited. It also provides questions for students to reflect on while reading and make connections to what they already know.

The materials miss the opportunity to consistently provide supports for accommodating different reading levels or provide the reading levels for the reading passages. The materials make a suggestion in Unit 7.1, Lesson 11 for teachers to create an audio version of the readings for struggling readers, but the resource does not provide the recordings.

Examples of a variety of representations to help struggling readers access and engage in grade-level science: 

• In Grade 6, Unit 6.6, Lesson 10: What do cells need to grow and make more of themselves?, information is provided to provide students the opportunity to choose their level of perceived challenge. There are four possible readings to choose from and the Lexile reading estimates for each of the readings. The scientific information in each of these readings is said to be equally rigorous and they are at different reading levels to support differentiation.

• In Grade 7, Unit 7.4, Lesson 13: What happens to food that doesn’t get eaten?, there are four readings that are at different reading levels for readers of different capabilities. The materials suggest the Dung Beetle reading for struggling student readers and the Bacillus Subtilis reading for those students who are looking for a challenge.

The materials integrate multiple simulations and computer interactives across the series, when applicable. The simulations and computer interactives are most often integrated with grade-band appropriate use of DCIs, SEPs, and/or CCCs when the concepts are difficult for students to visualize due to challenges of scale or changes over time. The majority of the program is designed for in-person engagement, leveraging digital engagement only as necessary. When digital tools are used, most of the guidance for teachers is centered around the facilitation of the tools for students to use in context with the lesson. Examples include:

• In Grade 6, Unit 6.2, Lesson 11: Why do particles move more in hot liquids?, students engage in a simulation. In this simulation students make observations and ask questions as they observe particle movement as the liquid in the simulation is heated and cooled. 

• In Grade 7, Unit 7.5, Lesson 8: Why do orangutans need so much forest space?, students engage in a simulation. In this simulation students gather data about individual orangutans that are competing for food resources. 

• In Grade 8, Unit 8.3, Lesson 5: How does the magnetic field change when we add another magnet to the system?, students engage in a computer interactive. In this computer interactive students map the magnetic field around a magnet and a coil of wire in different configurations for distance (how close the magnet and coil of wire are) as well as whether they are attractive or repulsive.

Program materials include a focus on students producing models through hands on, in person activities. The digital platform does however include opportunities for students to capture and share their thinking, models, and learning digitally with the teacher through the digital notebook. Tools in the digital notebook allow students to design and share simple models through the platform and record audio. These digital tools, while allowing for students to record their models digitally, may limit the ability for students to design and share as complex of models compared to those done hands on.

The materials reviewed for Grades 6-8  include a digital platform. There is limited opportunity for teachers to provide feedback to students digitally through the digital platform. Most of the student-student and student-teacher collaboration is designed for in-person engagement.

The materials reviewed for Grades 6-8 have a visual design that supports students in engaging thoughtfully with the subject, and is neither distracting nor chaotic. 

The student-facing materials (both those in print and those on the digital platform), follow a consistent format. The lesson materials are printed with the text in black and white and an accent color per grade level (Grade 6: green, Grade 7: blue, and Grade 8: red). There are no distracting visuals or an overabundance of graphic features. The images, graphics, and models are in color and are present, but only where they are necessary to support student learning. The student procedure pages and slides contain icons that indicate the strategy or activity that students will be engaged in.

The teacher materials and their organization are consistently clear and accurate. Each unit provides a Unit Overview for teachers to support them in understanding multiple aspects of the unit and its design. The Unit Overview frames the investigations and sets the stage for which NGSS Performance Expectations students will be building towards. The Unit Overview provides a Unit Storyline that details the lesson question, phenomenon, or design problem, what they figure out, and how they represent it for each lesson. This Storyline also includes the number of days required, and notes on transitions between lessons. Additionally, the Overview includes Teacher Background Knowledge that includes educative components and important information for enactment and/or adjustment, an Assessment System Overview, and sample Home Communication. Units also include documents related to the Elements of NGSS Dimensions with accompanying rationale for how they are included in the lesson, Lab Materials lists as necessary, Video Links as necessary, a Teacher Handbook, and protocol information relevant to student work and expectations (E.g., Communicating in Scientific Ways and Self Evaluation Classroom Discussion).

The student materials and their organization are consistently clear and accurate. The student materials are available in a printed separate guide per unit. It contains a table of contents and is broken into Student Procedures, References, and Readings. The Student Procedures section is broken up by lesson and provides step-by-step instructions that are simple and easy to follow. The instructions also follow in sequence with the slides for the unit. The guide includes the icons for different activities and protocols, such as “In your notebook” and “Turn and talk,” which provide consistent expectations for students throughout the unit and across all three grade levels. Graphs and images are printed in the materials when relevant and in color. Through this program, there is also the digital platform which both teachers and students can access for digital versions of the materials. In the platform’s digital Student Edition, students can record their thinking and learning progress in the digital notebook, which is structured like the student facing materials in the print materials, but offers tools such as typing text and digital drawing/modeling tools.

The materials reviewed for Grades 6-8 provide teacher guidance for the use of embedded technology to support and enhance student learning, when applicable. The guidance is mostly around using the simulations or computer interactives and how to facilitate the related activities. It offers suggestions for time spent on the simulation, and how to assist students with the outcomes (making observations, asking questions, collecting data, discussions, etc.). It also includes suggestions for how students should view the technology (main screen vs individual), and how they should be seated, for example in a semi-circle around the main presentation board. Examples include: 

• In Grade 6, Unit 6.2, Lesson 11: Why do particles move more in hot liquids?, guidance is provided for the teacher that includes how to facilitate the simulation of particle movement. It recommends how long to keep each part of the simulation open and how to lead the discussion about the simulation.

• In Grade 7, Unit 7.5, Lesson 8: Why do orangutans need so much forest space?, directions and suggestions for using the orangutan simulation with students are provided, including how to project the simulation for the whole class and how to use the simulation with students who are absent.

• In Grade 8, Unit 8.3, Lesson 5: How does the magnetic field change when we add another magnet to the system?, guidance for using the computer interactive for the magnet and coil of wire includes how students should arrange their data table in their notebooks and connects students back to related questions on the Driving Question Board. 

Digital communication tools are available within the Student Edition digital notebook. These tools are primarily ways in which students can replicate the type of modeling and communication pervasive in the unit plans. These tools include simple digital drawing/modeling tools and an audio recording feature.