This blog is co-authored by teachers in the Tustin Unified School District as we implement year 1 of the NGSS. The curriculum we have developed can be found at http://msngss.weebly.com/
For those of you who may have been following along, you will notice that this agenda has been edited to remove the lessons pertaining to density. Several of us have decided that we feel it necessary to introduce the periodic table in order to move into the first assessment on molecular modeling. However, we do not feel it is necessary to explicitly teach density since this is not one of our standards in middles school. This concept will be easily covered in high school.
In week 5, students use the IOS app Elements 4D to test predictions on the reactivity between elements. We will come back to this app in unit 2 when we begin chemical reactions.
Below is a video that shows how Soo Lee uses Elements 4D in her classroom.
In order to look ahead, I wanted to post a tentative agenda for week 4. We will be introducing the concept of density and how to use this physical characteristic of pure elements to determine unknown substances.
Angelica and I met at the start of this week to discuss our next steps moving forward transitioning from ecosystems into atoms and molecules. One way to do this is to bring back the organization of life that students learn about in 6th grade. In 6th grade, they mostly focus on the levels of cells to organisms. Now, we go down to the levels of atoms and up to the level of ecosystems or even biosphere.
We also felt that it is important to teach some of the periodic table, although we are not asked to do this in the NGSS. Two teachers at Utt Middle School, Melanie Formaneck and Claire Mathews with the support of digital learning coach Michelle Ciecek, created an interactive periodic table with articles at the top of each row to help students find the patterns and trends among the elements. You will find this in the agenda below.
