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Nature's Partners Curriculum and Educator's Guide

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As part of our continued commitment to education, the team at The Bee Cause Project has created this companion document, Educator’s Curriculum Guide, to supplement the Nature’s Partners curriculum.Our Tips from the Hive are designed to add layers of concept extensions, optional digital methods of delivering content, and support to educators that are either brand new or experienced environmental educators. The Buzz Worthy Resource Materials are video links, notable articles, and more printable resources, while the Bee Cause Book Club highlights recommended readings for students of all ages. Several titles have quality read-aloud links as well.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Game, Lesson Plan, Module, Simulation, Teaching/Learning Strategy

Author: The Bee Cause Project

Maker Club

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Maker Clubs introduce students to the making movement, the idea that hands on learning and creating things from scratch lays the foundation for future success, especially in STEM fields.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson, Lesson Plan, Module, Student Guide, Unit of Study

Author: Columbia Gorge STEM Hub

Be “Cool” with Popsicle Engineering

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Beginning kindergarteners are introduced to science and engineering concepts through questions such as “What is a Scientist?” and “What is an Engineer?”, and go on to compare and contrast the two. They are introduced to five steps of the engineering design process and explore these steps using the “I do, we do, you do” set of guided instruction. At the end of the project, students produce a set of purple popsicles that they design using various materials and by following a set of criteria.

Material Type: Activity/Lab

Author: Amy Bliss

Engineering for the Three Little Pigs

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The purpose of this activity is to demonstrate the importance of rocks, soils and minerals in engineering and how using the right material for the right job is important. The students build three different sand castles and test them for strength and resistance to weathering. Then, they discuss how the buildings are different and what engineers need to think about when using rocks, soils and minerals for construction.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan

Authors: Geoffrey Hill, Janet Yowell, Malinda Schaefer Zarske, Tim Nicklas

Remix

STEM BreakoutEDU- Saving the Golden Frogs

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The full Breakout EDU is available on the Breakout EDU platform. In order to view/use this resource, you will have to have an account on the Breakout EDU platform. Students work through different STEM-based challenges. Students create a 3D shape cage. Students measure frogs, and students code a path. At beginning of the Breakout EDU the teacher reads aloud a book about Golden Frog.

Material Type: Activity/Lab

Author: STEMToolkit Administrator

Build an Aluminum Foil Boat

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When an object is placed in water, there are two primary forces acting on it. Buoyancy is the force exerted on an object that is wholly or partly immersed in a fluid. The force of gravity is a downward force and buoyancy is an upward force. The gravitational force is determined by the object's weight, and the buoyancy force is determined by the weight of the water that is displaced by the object. If an object weighs less than the amount of water it displaces, it floats; if it weighs more, it sinks.

Material Type: Activity/Lab

Authors: based on a commonly shared lesson idea., STEM Bites are a project of the Oregon STEM Hub network. Lesson submitted from GO-STEM

STEM Through Wind Turbines

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This unit integrates scientific inquiry, the engineering design process, with math practices and technology. Students learn about energy, alternative energy, designing experiments and use math and technology as tools to accomplish their tasks.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Assessment

Author: JC HIDOE

STEM in PA: BrightNow!

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BrightNow! is a team of educators, musicians, artists, and innovators dedicated to creating tools for educators and families that support young learners. These supports are addressed and integrated into the lyrics, lessons, and activities in a way that enables a teacher to incorporate them into lessons and day-to-day activities, and are deliverable online or in-person. This resource includes mp3 audio file, downloadable song lyrics, and activity guides.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Interactive

Author: Kelsi Wilcox Boyles

6.1 Light & Matter

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How does a one-way mirror work? Though most everyone knows that one-way mirrors exist, having students model how they work turns out to be a very effective way to develop their thinking about how visible light travels and how we see images. Initial student models reveal a wide variety of ideas and explanations that motivate the unit investigations that help students figure out what is going on and lead them to a deeper understanding of the world around them. As the first unit in the OpenSciEd program, during the course of this unit, students also develop the foundation for classroom norms for collaboration that will be important across the whole program.

Material Type: Lesson, Lesson Plan, Unit of Study

7.3 Metabolic Reactions

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Unit Summary This unit on metabolic reactions in the human body starts out with students exploring a real case study of a middle-school girl named M’Kenna, who reported some alarming symptoms to her doctor. Her symptoms included an inability to concentrate, headaches, stomach issues when she eats, and a lack of energy for everyday activities and sports that she used to play regularly. She also reported noticeable weight loss over the past few months, in spite of consuming what appeared to be a healthy diet. Her case sparks questions and ideas for investigations around trying to figure out which pathways and processes in M’Kenna’s body might be functioning differently than a healthy system and why.  Students investigate data specific to M’Kenna’s case in the form of doctor’s notes, endoscopy images and reports, growth charts, and micrographs. They also draw from their results from laboratory experiments on the chemical changes involving the processing of food and from digital interactives to explore how food is transported, transformed, stored, and used across different body systems in all people. Through this work of figuring out what is causing M’Kenna’s symptoms, the class discovers what happens to the food we eat after it enters our bodies and how M’Kenna’s different symptoms are connected. This unit builds towards the following NGSS Performance Expectations (PEs) as described in the OpenSciEd Scope & Sequence: MS-LS1-3, MS-LS1-5, MS-LS1-7, MS-PS1-1, MS-PS1-2. The OpenSciEd units are designed for hands-on learning, and therefore materials are necessary to teach the unit. These materials can be purchased as science kits or assembled using the kit material list. Additional Unit InformationNext Generation Science Standards Addressed in this UnitPerformance ExpectationsThis unit builds toward the following NGSS Performance Expectations (PEs):

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson, Module

6.2 Thermal Energy

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Unit Summary This unit on thermal energy transfer begins with students testing whether a new plastic cup sold by a store keeps a drink colder for longer compared to the regular plastic cup that comes free with the drink. Students find that the drink in the regular cup warms up more than the drink in the special cup. This prompts students to identify features of the cups that are different, such as the lid, walls, and hole for the straw, that might explain why one drink warms up more than the other.  Students investigate the different cup features they conjecture are important to explaining the phenomenon, starting with the lid. They model how matter can enter or exit the cup via evaporation However, they find that in a completely closed system, the liquid inside the cup still changes temperature. This motivates the need to trace the transfer of energy into the drink as it warms up. Through a series of lab investigations and simulations, students find that there are two ways to transfer energy into the drink: (1) the absorption of light and (2) thermal energy from the warmer air around the drink. They are then challenged to design their own drink container that can perform as well as the store-bought container, following a set of design criteria and constraints. This unit builds toward the following NGSS Performance Expectations (PEs) as described in the OpenSciEd Scope & Sequence: MS-PS1-4*, MS-PS3-3, MS-PS3-4, MS-PS3-5, MS-PS4-2*, MS-ETS1-4. The OpenSciEd units are designed for hands-on learning and therefore materials are necessary to teach the unit. These materials can be purchased as science kits or assembled using the kit material list.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson, Module

8.2 Sound Waves

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Unit Summary In this unit, students develop ideas related to how sounds are produced, how they travel through media, and how they affect objects at a distance. Their investigations are motivated by trying to account for a perplexing anchoring phenomenon — a truck is playing loud music in a parking lot and the windows of a building across the parking lot visibly shake in response to the music. They make observations of sound sources to revisit the K–5 idea that objects vibrate when they make sounds. They figure out that patterns of differences in those vibrations are tied to differences in characteristics of the sounds being made. They gather data on how objects vibrate when making different sounds to characterize how a vibrating object’s motion is tied to the loudness and pitch of the sounds they make. Students also conduct experiments to support the idea that sound needs matter to travel through, and they will use models and simulations to explain how sound travels through matter at the particle level. This unit builds toward the following NGSS Performance Expectations (PEs) as described in the OpenSciEd Scope & Sequence: MS-PS4-1, MS-PS4-2. The OpenSciEd units are designed for hands-on learning and therefore materials are necessary to teach the unit. These materials can be purchased as science kits or assembled using the kit material list.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson, Module

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