Amplify Science
Amplify Science is a curriculum that blends hands-on investigations, literacy-rich activities, and interactive digital tools to empower students to think, read, write, and argue like real scientists and engineers.
Needs of Plants & Animals
The Needs of Plants and Animals unit examines the problem of the declining monarch population on a smaller scale. Students assume the role of scientists helping a group of children from the fictional community of Mariposa Grove to explain why there are no more caterpillars in a community garden that was converted from a field which once had caterpillars; students also advise the children on what they can do to attract the monarchs. This investigation serves as an anchor phenomenon for the unit. In the unit, students figure out that monarch caterpillars feed on milkweed plants, and then investigate what milkweed plants need to grow by observing and recording plants under different water and light conditions. Books and time-lapse videos provide more opportunities for students to learn how plants get what they need to grow. Students also examine the ways that humans change their environment in order to meet their needs and explore how people can choose to share the places they live with other living things. At the end of the unit, students engage in a design problem as they recommend a plan to redesign the garden in Mariposa Grove in such a way that it accommodates the needs of both humans and monarchs.
Pushes and Pull
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Students take on the role of pinball machine engineers as they investigate the effects of forces on the motion of an object. They conduct tests in their own prototypes (models) of a pinball machine and use what they learn to contribute to the design of a class pinball machine. Over the course of the unit, students construct a foundational understanding of why things move in different ways.
Sunlight and Weather
The principals of Woodland Elementary and Carver Elementary need student weather scientists to help them explain why Woodland’s playground is warmer than Carver’s at recess. Students gather data from models of the sun and Earth’s surface and observe their own playgrounds to figure out how sunlight causes changes in the temperatures of different surfaces. Students then use models to figure out why Woodland’s playground sometimes floods.