Focus: This unit introduces Grade 3 students to real-world examples and fundamental concepts of forces, which will be explored in greater depth in later grades. Students will learn about observable effects of balanced and unbalanced forces on an object’s motion, describe and predict patterns of repeating motion, and explore how forces are associated with cause-and-effect relationships.
Number of Lessons: 9
Lesson Time: 30–45 minutes daily. Each lesson may be divided into shorter segments.
Please note that certain lessons in this unit are designed for multiple days, resulting in approximately 15 days of instruction. For more information, please refer to the recommended Pacing Guide within the Teacher Guide.
Additional Search Terms: force • motion • push • pull • balanced • unbalanced • gravity • predict/prediction • friction • lubricant • pattern • magnet/magnetism • problem • solution • test • nonfiction • informational text
Unit 2: Life Cycles, Traits & Variations
Focus: This unit examines the life cycles of various plants and animals, including the defining characteristics that are shared or varied by individuals in the same population. Students investigate how life cycles of various organisms differ and what they have in common: the pattern of birth, growth, reproduction, and death.
Number of Lessons: 14
Lesson Time: 30–45 minutes daily. Each lesson may be divided into shorter segments.
Please note that certain lessons in this unit are designed for multiple days, resulting in approximately 19 days of instruction. For more information, please refer to the recommended Pacing Guide within the Teacher Guide.
Additional Search Terms: life cycle • plant • animal • organism • pattern • seed • germination • adolescence • death • reproduction • stages • birth • metamorphosis • growth • pollination • pollinator • spore • individual • population • trait • characteristic • sibling • identical • offspring • inherit • vary • species • ecosystem • environment • change • advantage • survive • camouflage • season • rare • extinct • nonfiction • informational text
Unit 3: Habitats & Change
Focus: This unit introduces Grade 3 students to fundamental concepts of habitats, adaptations, ecosystems, and environmental changes over time. Students will learn about the relationships between living things and their environments. They see that organisms are adapted to live in specific habitats. But when the habitats change, suddenly or over millions of years, the same adaptations that allowed success in one habitat may not be those that ensure survival in another.
Number of Lessons: 18
Lesson Time: 30–45 minutes daily. Each lesson may be divided into shorter segments.
Please note that certain lessons in this unit are designed for multiple days, resulting in approximately 23 days of instruction. For more information, please refer to the recommended Pacing Guide within the Teacher Guide.
Additional Search Terms: habitat • plant • animal • organism • individual • population • survive • adaptation • ecosystem • environment • change • invasive species • climate • migrate • conservation • extinct • fossil • problem • solution • nonfiction • informational text
Unit 4: Weather & Climate
Focus: This unit focuses on weather and climate. Students describe patterns of weather across time and location. They learn the difference between weather and climate.
Students study Earth’s atmosphere, the mixture of gases surrounding our planet. A major focus of this unit is the role of water in the atmosphere and the importance of evaporation, condensation, and precipitation.
Number of Lessons: 13
Lesson Time: 30–45 minutes daily. Each lesson may be divided into shorter segments.
Please note that certain lessons in this unit are designed for multiple days, resulting in approximately 18 days of instruction. For more information, please refer to the recommended Pacing Guide within the Teacher Guide.
Additional Search Terms: atmosphere • air pressure • weather • climate • water vapor • precipitation • humidity • wind • air mass • meteorologist • weather front • season • weather hazard • nonfiction • informational text
Grade 4
Unit 1: Energy Transfer & Transformation
Focus: This unit engages students with the idea that whenever there is a change, there is at least one form of energy causing that change. Students investigate evidence of energy all around them — when they flip on a light switch, feel a car start to move, or hear a phone ring.
Number of Lessons: 13
Lesson Time: 30–45 minutes daily. Each lesson may be divided into shorter segments.
Please note that certain lessons in this unit are designed for multiple days, resulting in approximately 20 days of instruction. For more information, please refer to the recommended Pacing Guide within the Teacher Guide.
Additional Search Terms: evidence • model • variable • speed • motion • distance • collision • contact force • electricity • current • stability and change • cause and effect • energy and matter • convert • design • test • refine • nonfiction • informational text
Unit 2: Investigating Waves
Focus: This unit engages students with waves and observable evidence that energy moves from one place to another. Waves produced in one place move to another and can cause a change. Students investigate some of the more common forms of waves around them: water waves, sound waves, and light waves.
Number of Lessons: 14
Lesson Time: 30–45 minutes daily. Each lesson may be divided into shorter segments.
Please note that certain lessons in this unit are designed for multiple days, resulting in approximately 20 days of instruction. For more information, please refer to the recommended Pacing Guide within the Teacher Guide.
Additional Search Terms: wave • wavelength • crest • trough • model • wave height • amplitude • frequency • pitch • vibration • sound • reflect • color • code • pattern • signal • symbol • nonfiction • informational text
Unit 3: Structure & Function of Living Things
Focus: This unit helps students to make the connection between structure and function at all levels of biological organization. Cell, tissues, organs, and organ systems are investigated through the lens of structure and function—things look like they do as a reflection of their functions. The cells of a leaf, the tissues of skin, and the respiratory system of a giant ape—they all can be understood when students know that structure and function are related.
Number of Lessons: 14
Lesson Time: 30–45 minutes daily. Each lesson may be divided into shorter segments.
Please note that certain lessons in this unit are designed for multiple days, resulting in approximately 20 days of instruction. For more information, please refer to the recommended Pacing Guide within the Teacher Guide.
Additional Search Terms: structure • function • cell • tissue • organ • system • biological organization • survival • reproduction • growth • behavior • stimulus • response • tropism • sense • visual system • auditory system • nonfiction • informational text
Unit 4: Processes That Shape Earth
Focus: In this unit students explore the dynamic nature of Earth, including the layers of our planet: the inner and outer core, the mantle, and the crust. As they explore the ever-changing Earth and the processes that drive change, students see the effect of continental drift and how actions in the mantle cause major changes in Earth’s crust. Mountains may be formed when large parts of Earth’s crust push against each other.
Number of Lessons: 13
Lesson Time: 30–45 minutes daily. Each lesson may be divided into shorter segments.
Please note that certain lessons in this unit are designed for multiple days, resulting in approximately 21 days of instruction. For more information, please refer to the recommended Pacing Guide within the Teacher Guide.
Additional Search Terms: plate • fossil • geologist • Earth’s core • mantle • Earth’s crust • rocks• sedimentary • igneous • metamorphic • earthquake • tsunami • volcano • hot spot • lava • magma • weathering • erosion • landslide • nonfiction • informational text
Unit 5: Using Natural Resources for Energy
Focus: This is a Problem Based Learning unit in which students build to a capstone lesson and a presentation to the public. In this unit students focus on the renewable and nonrenewable resources. They will study how people use these resources for energy. In addition they will examine the engineering design behind new technologies that protect the environment. The energy we use is derived ultimately from Earth’s natural resources, which can be classified as either nonrenewable or renewable.
Number of Lessons: 17
Lesson Time: 30–45 minutes daily. Each lesson may be divided into shorter segments.
Please note that certain lessons in this unit are designed for multiple days, resulting in approximately 21 days of instruction. For more information, please refer to the recommended Pacing Guide within the Teacher Guide.
Additional Search Terms: cost-benefit analysis • renewable energy resource • nonrenewable energy resource • fossil fuel • oil • petroleum • greenhouse gas • nuclear energy • nuclear waste • wind farm • hydroelectric power • solar power • solar cell • geothermal energy • fuel cell • nonfiction • informational text
Grade 5
Unit 1: Investigating Matter
Focus: This unit introduces Grade 5 students to real-world examples and fundamental concepts of matter, which will be explored in greater depth in later grades. Students will learn about properties, structures, and interactions of matter as well as the basics of the language of chemistry.
Number of Lessons: 12
Lesson Time: 30–45 minutes daily. Each lesson may be divided into shorter segments.
Please note that certain lessons in this unit are designed for multiple days, resulting in approximately 20 days of instruction. For more information, please refer to the recommended Pacing Guide within the Teacher Guide.
Additional Search Terms: matter • property • mass • volume • weight • design process • solution • dissolve • evaporate • physical change • chemical change • state of matter • solid • liquid • gas • atom • molecule • conservation • mixture • nonfiction • informational text
Unit 2: Energy & Matter in Ecosystems
Focus: This unit focuses on the scientific concept that energy and matter flow through an ecosystem to individual organisms and back to the ecosystem in a continuous cycle. Students will learn that every organism on Earth needs energy to live. Both energy and matter cycle through an ecosystem. Life on Earth derives its energy from the sun. Plants and algae take in the energy of sunlight and transform it into the chemical energy of food. When animals eat plants, the chemical energy of food moves into the bodies of animals, so the energy that animals use originally came from the sun.
Number of Lessons: 15
Lesson Time: 30–45 minutes daily. Each lesson may be divided into shorter segments.
Please note that certain lessons in this unit are designed for multiple days, resulting in approximately 21 days of instruction. For more information, please refer to the recommended Pacing Guide within the Teacher Guide.
Additional Search Terms: food • energy • living thing • organism • decomposer • producer • consumer • predator • prey • scavenger • glucose • sugar • photosynthesis • chemical reaction • metabolism • energy transformation • transfer • • nonfiction • informational text
Unit 3: Modelling Earth's Systems
Focus: This unit allows student to investigate a model to comprehend the complexity of the many parts of the Earth. Students learn about and explore the four “spheres” that comprise all the physical and biological factors of Earth. After defining each sphere, the unit then addresses the interactions of these spheres. In this way, students have a model that simplifies the planet we live on
Number of Lessons: 12
Lesson Time: 30–45 minutes daily. Each lesson may be divided into shorter segments.
Please note that certain lessons in this unit are designed for multiple days, resulting in approximately 18 days of instruction. For more information, please refer to the recommended Pacing Guide within the Teacher Guide.
Additional Search Terms: atmosphere • hydrosphere • geosphere • biosphere • water cycle • reservoir • groundwater • rock cycle • air mass • air pressure • biome • biodiversity • species • erosion • weathering • aquifer • rain shadow • soil • nonfiction • informational text
Unit 4: Protecting Earth's Resources
Focus: In this unit students will focus on how humans can preserve and protect the many natural resources we use for modern life—for agriculture, transportation, industry, and daily needs. Students learn about our protection of
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Water resources
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Air and atmospheric health
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Taking care of the land
Number of Lessons: 15
Lesson Time: 30–45 minutes daily. Each lesson may be divided into shorter segments.
Please note that certain lessons in this unit are designed for multiple days, resulting in approximately 17 days of instruction. For more information, please refer to the recommended Pacing Guide within the Teacher Guide.
Additional Search Terms: natural resource • ecosystem • algal bloom • wastewater • water treatment plant • freshwater • groundwater • pollutant • stewardship • air pollution • smog • ozone • air quality • contaminated land • landfill • green space • no-till farming • biodegradable • biodiversity • nonfiction • informational text
Unit 5: Astronomy: Space Systems
Focus: Students will learn about Earth, our solar system, our galaxy the Milky Way, and our place in the universe. They will focus on a big vision, that we are part of a large solar system, which lies within in an even larger galaxy that is but one of many millions of galaxies in the universe.
Number of Lessons: 14
Lesson Time: 30–45 minutes daily. Each lesson may be divided into shorter segments.
Please note that certain lessons in this unit are designed for multiple days, resulting in approximately 18 days of instruction. For more information, please refer to the recommended Pacing Guide within the Teacher Guide.
Additional Search Terms: galaxy • solar system • universe • orbit • Earth’s axis • lunar eclipse • solar eclipse• moon phase • apparent brightness • absolute brightness • light-year • star • gravity • tides • space exploration • nonfiction • informational text
