How can understanding the science behind today's issues prepare our students for the decisions and solutions of tomorrow? Each unit in Issues and Science is framed with an overall focus to guide the learning and instruction. How should we prevent the spread of an infectious disease? How is a growing population affecting the availability of natural resources?
These issues and their connected phenomena drive the storyline of each unit for students to investigate, discuss, analyze, and design solutions in Issues in Science, designed for NGSS middle school science.
What does a unit look like?
In a typical school year, students are spending over 170 instructional days doing something hands-on. Labs and investigations related to problem-solving and phenomena, and woven tightly into the unit's overall issue, make up over two-thirds of the school year. This video is a great way to quickly see how our NGSS units are structured.
SEPUP | Middle School | NGSS Earth Science Units | Click each unit for details
SEPUP | Middle School | NGSS Life Science Units | Click each unit for details
How does a "hands-on" science publisher pivot to 100% online learning during a global pandemic? It helps to have a curriculum that already lends itself to lots of student interaction.
It certainly takes a shift in perspective to transfer these interactions from a real life scenario, to that of a digital classroom, but starting with a high-quality program that is already interactive in nature, will make this process much easier. See a few examples from one of our Lab-Aids teachers using SEPUP's Issues and Science.