The Colorado Department of Education

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Science Sample Curriculum

Initial Samples Released January 31, 2013

Hello science educators,

I am proud to present the k-12 science curriculum samples created by Colorado educators and teachers. Working with facilitators Linda Morris (Denver), Ken Jensen (Aurora) and Scott Zevin (Glenwood Springs), this past fall, approximately 100 educators came together to translate the physical, life, and earth science standards of the Colorado Academic Standards (CAS) into curriculum. As resources for districts’ voluntary-use, these curriculum samples offer possible options for sequencing the concepts, skills, and content of the CAS across a course or year.

The template upon which all of the samples are based was designed and refined by Colorado educators to highlight what students should understand, know and be able to do at the end of a given unit (detailed description of the curriculum template components). There are some unique aspects to the science samples at particular grade levels, which are documented in the bullet points below.

Together, these samples are intended to support districts’ transition to the CAS and the development of standards-based instructional practices. Please click here to share your thoughts regarding these support resources.

Joanna Bruno
Science Content Specialist

Questions?: E-mail the Science Content Specialist

Update February 15, 2013.  In the original posting of the Science samples, the completion of the sentence stem for the knowledge statements was somewhat confusing. To clarify this section, we have streamlined the knowledge statement to make the samples more accessible and user-friendly.

To learn more about the Science curriculum samples watch this presentation:

Middle and High School Science Samples

Unique components in middle and high school science:

  • The Reading and Writing Standards for Literacy in Science 6-12 incorporated in the ELA standards of the Common Core have been included in each of the middle/high school samples. The intent of this inclusion is to support teachers in integrating effective reading and writing strategies in the science classroom, and for students to engage in meaningful reading and writing activities while learning physical, earth, and life sciences.

Elementary Science Samples

Unique components in elementary science:

  • A graphic, on the elementary samples, that provides a visual depiction of the connections between the skills, content and concepts of k-5 science strands

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