At the heart of the science program at the Tapscott campus is the development of a supportive and encouraging learning environment. The science program builds a solid foundation by preparing students through inquiry-based instruction. Our program promotes opportunities to enable all students to develop their learning styles, tap into their natural curiosities, and to extend their understanding of scientific concepts.
Beginning in Kindergarten
Kindergartners connect to the natural world around them through an exciting, hands-on science program. Thoughtful investigations and careful observations are integrated into their everyday life in the classroom, the wildlife garden, the adjacent park, and on field trips. Each year, they learn about one particular habitat in depth (for example, fresh-water creeks and ponds), exploring life cycles and relationships. The kindergartners also visit the science lab weekly to continue their investigations with a specific emphasis on the process of science.
Continuing from First to Fourth Grade
The science curriculum provides our students with opportunities to acquire an understanding of both the characteristics of science and its content. As the elementary students progress through the program, science is introduced as a way of thinking and investigating, as well as a growing body of knowledge about the natural and physical world. Lessons are designed to teach students to observe and understand their world through exploration and the use of the scientific method. The "spiraling" approach, by which concepts are revisited and built upon at each grade level, helps each student gain a deeper understanding of science throughout the elementary years. Frequently, grade level science topics are paralleled with the classroom humanities topics. Science instruction can not only be observed in the science lab with the science specialist, but also in the classroom with teachers and guest speakers, or out in the community on field trips with scientists.
In the first and second grades, the science program relies primarily on the process of discovery and exploration. Basic skills and vocabulary are integrated into each lesson.
In grades three and four, in addition to discovery and exploration, greater emphasis is placed on the understanding and use of the scientific method. Students begin to design, carry out, and evaluate their experiments. Basic skills are reinforced and are incorporated into higher-level skills involving process and inquiry.
First Grade
Being a Scientist
Scientific Mystery
Study of Dirt
Matter: Solids, Liquids, and Mixtures
Characteristics of Life
Ecology of the Garden: Insects, Plants, Earthworms
Second Grade
Animal Classification: Vertebrates -
Skeletal &
Muscular Systems, Form, Structure, & Function
Animal Adaptation: Energy Flow, Food Pyramids,
Chains & Webs, Life Cycles
Gases, Properties of Air - Parachutes and Egg Drop
Third Grade
Three Sisters and the Science of Popcorn
Animal Classification: Invertebrates
Earth Science:
Geology
Moon Phases
Matter: Atoms, Elements, & the Periodic Table
Molecules & Compounds
Temperature and States of Matter
Physics of Sound
Physics of Light
Fourth Grade
Scientific Method: Obscertainer Kits
Exploring on Earth: Contour Mapping
Earth's Magnetic Field and Compasses
The fifth grade science program uses a combination of hands-on activities and rigorous academic content to teach Earth Science. We begin the year with an introductory unit on metric measurement followed by our first Earth Science unit on Earth’s interior. This course uses constructivist pedagogy allowing students to discover for themselves the theory of plate tectonics by investigating geologic activity and features. After learning about the lithosphere and its dynamic processes, we learn how the surface of Earth is continually changing through plate movements, erosion, and sediment transfer. We explore the concept of a watershed using an interactive environmental justice activity, recognizing the interconnectedness of Earth’s systems and its inhabitants. Students study the composition of the atmosphere, its properties, climate change, and human impacts on the atmosphere. We conclude the Earth Science curriculum with a unit on biomes and ecosystems, in which students learn about food webs, ecological niches, and adaptation. Each unit includes a place-based learning component, where we will apply what we learned to a local area. Throughout the course, students continue to develop essential skills such as measurement, data collection, graphing, and analysis. The school year ends with a health unit designed to provide students with accurate information about their changing bodies, sex, and puberty, while opening an informed and respectful discussion surrounding the many questions that accompany adolescence. In addition to this science content and skill building, students learn 100 Greek and Latin roots and affixes throughout the year to help build their reading comprehension of scientific and expository texts.
Sixth Grade
Sixth grade science is a hands-on, integrated exploration of topics in sustainability, earth systems science, physics, nutrition, and human development. The course begins by considering humans’ basic needs for physical survival. Next we study the topic of environmental sustainability. Student assess their own water use in comparison with consumption in a water-scarce country. Our studies of sustainable energy focus on the concept of carbon footprint. Projects include modeling solar houses and making solar ovens. In the context of food as a basic need, students study the development of agriculture and differences among modern systems of farming. They also consider consequences and constituents of a healthy diet. This prepares students for a weeklong trip to Live Power Farm taken with their homeroom. Our investigations of physics cover work and simple machines, and Newton's Laws of Motion. At the close of the school year students study human growth and development in the context of adolescents' changing bodies.
Sixth grade students deepen their understanding of the scientific method in a cooperative learning environment. They apply quantitative and analytical skills to topics in physical, earth, and biological sciences. The course takes a constructivist approach to science and strives to develop scientific inquiry skills including observing; collecting, interpreting, and analyzing data; hypothesizing; classifying; and controlling variables.
Seventh Grade – Physical Science
Seventh Grade – Physical Science
Seventh grade science is a physical science course emphasizing the kinetic particulate model of matter. The year is divided between studies of matter and energy which become the foundation for understanding eighth grade life science. The underlying principle continues to be “learning to think like a scientist”. Students investigate a wide range of natural phenomena and construct knowledge through direct experience in a laboratory setting. Emphasis is placed on asking testable questions and using experimentation, systematic observation and measurement to discover answers. The scientific method thus continues to be taught through direct practice. For example, there is an extended comparison between water ice and dry ice (CO2) culminating in student designed experiments to answer their own questions about the nature of dry ice.
Units of study include "Bubbleology," a consumer-testing project, measurement, states of matter, chemistry, heat, and light. Experimental and measurement skills introduced and developed in previous years continue to be refined with greater emphasis on accuracy, precision, and clarity of presentation. Test preparation and test taking skills take on an increasing role.
Eighth Grade – Life Science
Eighth grade science is a life science course. While continuing the underlying principle of “learning to think like a scientist", greater emphasis is placed on mastering a particular body of knowledge. Biochemistry and the behavior of molecules is used as the unifying theme to tie together units including human reproduction, microscopy, biochemistry, cells, heredity, molecular genetics, and evolution. Biochemistry is chosen to prepare students for the most rigorous aspects of high school science. Methods of study focus on taking notes from lectures and a variety of text sources, building models, experimenting, and presenting material. The topics are explored in unusual depth. For example, in the unit on human reproduction, students carry out primary research into the cost of raising a child and use computer technology to present the information as a spreadsheet. Test preparation and test-taking skills continue to be explicitly developed even more comprehensively than in previous years.
