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Course Standards
General Course Information and Notes
Version Description
This course offers students an opportunity to deepen science, mathematics, engineering, and technology skills. The primary content focus will be to expand knowledge of current grade level standards in mathematics and science by applying that content in a real world, hands-on situation involving engineering and technology. For fourth grade, themes will focus on the investigation of number sense, measurement, geometry, earth science, life science, and physical science concepts.
Students will participate in various hands-on STEM activities in this supplemental course to assist in the mastery of current grade level mathematics and science standards.
Instructional Practices
Teaching from a range of complex text is optimized when teachers in all subject areas implement the following strategies on a routine basis:
- Ensuring wide reading from complex text that varies in length.
- Making close reading and rereading of texts central to lessons.
- Emphasizing text-specific complex questions, and cognitively complex tasks, reinforce focus on the text and cultivate independence.
- Emphasizing students supporting answers based upon evidence from the text.
- Providing extensive research and writing opportunities (claims and evidence).
Science and Engineering Practices (NRC Framework for K-12 Science Education, 2010)
- Asking questions (for science) and defining problems (for engineering).
- Developing and using models.
- Planning and carrying out investigations.
- Analyzing and interpreting data.
- Using mathematics, information and computer technology, and computational thinking.
- Constructing explanations (for science) and designing solutions (for engineering).
- Engaging in argument from evidence.
- Obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information.
English Language Development (ELD) Standards Special Notes Section:
Teachers are required to provide listening, speaking, reading and writing instruction that allows English Language Learners (ELL) to communicate information, ideas and concepts for academic success in science and math. For the given level of English language proficiency and with visual, graphic, or interactive support, students will interact with grade level words, expressions, sentences and discourse to process or produce language necessary for academic success. The ELD standard should specify a relevant content area concept or topic of study chosen by curriculum developers and teachers which maximizes an ELL's need for communication and social skills. To access an ELL supporting document which delineates performance definitions and descriptors, please click on the following link: {{AzureStorageLink}}/uploads/docs/standards/eld/sc.pdf.
General Information
- Class Size Core Required
Educator Certifications
Student Resources
Original Student Tutorials
Identify some familiar changes in materials that result in other materials with different characteristics in this interactive tutorial.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Explore how objects can be compared and sorted based on their physical properties in this fishing-themed, interactive tutorial.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Practice distinguishing between observations and inferences that are based on observations as you help Darius fill in his science notebook in this interactive tutorial.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn to discriminate between observations and inferences in scientific investigations, explore the importance of objectivity in science, classify different scientific methods, and distinguish empirical evidence from ideas and feelings within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic in this interactive tutorial.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Discover what a virus is, actions that cause viruses like the flu to spread from one person to another, and strategies to decrease the spread of viruses to others.
This interactive tutorial is part 2 in a two-part series. Click to open part 1.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Discover what a virus is, actions that cause viruses like the flu to spread from one person to another, and strategies to decrease the spread of viruses to others.
This interactive tutorial is part 1 in a two-part series. Click to open part 2.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
In this video, SaM-1 introduces a part 2 twist to the Model Eliciting Activity (MEA) challenge. In the optional twist, students will need to design a prototype toy suitable for a Florida panther with an injured leg. This first video provides background information on why and how animals need to be entertained.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
In this video, SaM-1 introduces a Model Eliciting Activity (MEA) challenge for the students. This video provides background information on why and how animals need to be entertained. Students will have the opportunity to apply what they learned about physical properties and measuring linear lengths as they are asked to design a prototype toy for Florida panthers housed at the CPALMS Rehabilitation and Conservation Center.
In the optional twist, students will need to design a prototype toy suitable for a Florida panther with an injured leg. The optional twist also has a SaM-1 video to introduce the twist challenge.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn about the natural resources all around us in this interactive science tutorial.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn about important natural resources, including limestone, silicon, and phosphate in this interactive tutorial.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Compare the methods and results various groups have when they search for amphibians in an ephemeral wetland in this interactive tutorial.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn about natural resources that humans use for energy in this interactive tutorial.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Explore the Law of Conservation of Mass using your favorite building blocks in this interactive tutorial.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Join in coaching the local soccer team and learn about the motion of objects with this interactive tutorial.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn about mechanical energy, including its two forms--kinetic energy and potential energy--with this interactive tutorial.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Explore electrical energy and electricity in this interactive tutorial about forms of energy.
This is the fourth tutorial in a five-part series. Click below to open the others in the series.
- Part 2: Heat Energy
- Part 3: Sound Energy
- Part 4: Electrical Energy
- Part 5: Mechanical Energy (Coming soon)
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn about sound, one of the main types of energy, as you complete this interactive science tutorial.
This is the fourth tutorial in a five-part series. Click below to open the others in the series.
- Part 2: Heat Energy
- Part 3: Sound Energy
- Part 4: Electrical Energy
- Part 5: Mechanical Energy (Coming soon)
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Discover what heat energy is and the role it plays on the Earth in this interactive tutorial.
This is the fourth tutorial in a five-part series. Click below to open the others in the series.
- Part 2: Heat Energy
- Part 3: Sound Energy
- Part 4: Electrical Energy
- Part 5: Mechanical Energy (Coming soon)
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Light is all around us and we need it to survive. In this interactive tutorial, learn about light energy and how it works!
This is the first tutorial in a five-part series. Click below to open the others in the series.
- Part 1: Light Energy
- Part 3: Sound Energy
- Part 4: Electrical Energy
- Part 5: Mechanical Energy (Coming soon)
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Discover the methods scientists use to solve problems, answer questions, and make discoveries in this interactive tutorial.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Explore food chains found in many Florida ecosystems as you complete this interactive tutorial.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Explore energy flow in the environment through food chains as you complete this interactive tutorial.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Explore the path energy takes from the Sun to producers to consumers.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn how to define, declare and initialize variables as you start the journey to "bee" a coder in this interactive tutorial. Variables are structures used by computer programs to store information. You'll use your math skills to represent a fraction as a decimal to be stored in a variable.
This is part 1 of a 4-part series on coding. Click below to open the other tutorials in the series.
- Bee A Coder Part 2: Condition Statements
- Bee A Coder Part 3: If Statements
- Bee A Coder Part 4: Repeat Loops
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Explore the life cycle of different Florida seed plants: the longleaf pine and the orange tree.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Explore the life cycles of animals including simple, complete metamorphosis and incomplete metamorphosis in this interactive tutorial.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn how electrical energy is produced from earth's natural resources. In this interactive tutorial, explore the process to power buildings and other electronic devices.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Explore different types of natural resources and analyze the aspects of non-renewable and renewable resources in this interactive tutorial. You'll be challenged to question what we do with our resources and why it is so important to consider what we do with them after we have used them.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Dig into the effects weathering and erosion have had on the shaping of our landscape. Sift through the rocks of our world and how weathering has cut and shaped them and how erosion has transported and molded the surfaces of the Earth.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Explore the three categories of rocks and what makes each one unique.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Explore the characteristics of minerals in our rock formations and what makes them unique. In this interactive tutorial, you'll learn about simple tests that are used to identify minerals.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Educational Game
This game allows students an opportunity to identify different kinds of rocks based on an actual photograph of the rock as well as characteristics of the rock, which are also shown.
Type: Educational Game
Perspectives Video: Professional/Enthusiast
Physics is a weighty subject, but this discussion of magnets and illusion brings a little levity.
Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.
Type: Perspectives Video: Professional/Enthusiast
Video/Audio/Animations
This animation depicts key events of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission, which launched in late 2011 and landed a rover, Curiosity, on Mars in August 2012.
Type: Video/Audio/Animation
Watch a demonstration of an experiment which tests the effectiveness of two different insulators. The participants will demonstrate their thinking as they run an experiment, identify variables and collect data.
Type: Video/Audio/Animation
The students will watch a short video that shows them how sound is created and how it is interpreted by our brain.
Type: Video/Audio/Animation
The students will watch a short video showing how different pitches are made.
Type: Video/Audio/Animation
Virtual Manipulative
Consider a wide range of possibilities when problem solving by experimenting with materials. Play around with objects and ideas to discover that there may be more than one solution. You will have an opportunity to explore with an assortment of objects to create a path for a ball to take.
Type: Virtual Manipulative
Congratulations
