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Curriculum Resources

Green Schools Energy Curriculum – What opportunities do school buildings themselves provide for helping students develop a scientific foundation for making choices about energy resources and their use? In this exploratory study funded by the National Science Foundation, Project 2061 has developed an outline for a Green Schools Energy Curriculum and gathered feedback from the field on the feasibility of such an approach and what it would take to implement it. Contact: George DeBoer, Principal Investigator, gdeboer@aaas.org

Matter and Energy for Growth and Activity – Developed with support from the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences, AAAS Project 2061 partnered with the Genetics Science Learning Center at the University of Utah to design and test a multimedia twelve-week curriculum unit for high school biology. The unit supports the vision of three-dimensional learning and teaching in the Next Generation Science Standards, focusing on important but often difficult core ideas and crosscutting concepts about matter and energy in nonliving and living systems while engaging students in science practices of analyzing and interpreting data, using mathematics, developing and using models to make sense and construct explanations of matter and energy phenomena. The Matter and Energy for Growth and Activity unit is available from NSTA Press and includes a Student Edition workbook, a comprehensive Teacher Edition, and a set of online resources. Contact: Jo Ellen Roseman, Principal Investigator, roseman.joellen@gmail.com

Read more:

  • Herrmann-Abell, C. F., Hardcastle, J., & Roseman, J. E. (2019, April). Evaluating a unit aimed at helping students understand matter and energy for growth and activity. Paper presented at the annual conference of the American Educational Research Association, Toronto, Canada.

Toward High School BiologyDeveloped with support from the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences and in partnership with BSCS, AAAS Project 2061 has developed and tested an innovative eight-week curriculum unit designed to integrate physical and life science concepts to help middle school students understand chemical reactions and their role in the growth and repair of living organisms. Field test results have shown that students using the new unit, which is designed to align with the three dimensions of science learning called for in the Next Generation Science Standards, have significant learning gains when compared to students using their district curriculum. The Toward High School Biology unit is available from NSTA Press and includes a Student Edition workbook, a comprehensive Teacher Edition, and a set of online resources. Contact:  Jo Ellen Roseman, Principal Investigator, roseman.joellen@gmail.com

Explore a sample chapter from the Teacher Edition.

Download a summary of the Toward High School Biology unit.   

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WeatherSchool @ AAAS Website - This online tool lets students analyze patterns in real-world data collected by weather stations, satellites, and other observation sites on land and sea. Supported by NASA and NOAA, this effort is also producing assessments that educators can use to get a better picture of what students know and don’t know about weather and climate concepts. Contact: George DeBoer, Co-Principal Investigator, gdeboer@aaas.org

WeatherSchool @ AAAS is used under license from Yaros Communications, Inc.

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