Bring Science Alive! for Connecticut

Designed for NGSS

We know that one of the most challenging aspects for any teacher is to integrate all of the necessary standards into your lesson plans and presentations, in-class activities, and assessments. To make your job easier and to help you focus more on your students and less on lesson planning, we’ve done all of that work for you. Our middle school and elementary school science curriculum programs are designed for NGSS and are in line with all Connecticut state science standards. You can access NGSS correlations on our website so you can see where each standard fits within our curriculum and learn more about the standards you’re teaching.

Explaining Phenomena

Phenomenon-based storylines provide real-world problems for students to connect their learning with their own experiences. Investigations, reading notes, and key science concepts enable students to explore, explain, and make sense of phenomena.

Designing Solutions

Engineering Challenges and investigations engage students to design solutions directly relating to Disciplinary Core Ideas.

Three Dimensional Learning

Each and every lesson focuses on at least one Science and Engineering Practice, one Disciplinary Core Idea, and one Crosscutting Concept. Each dimension is selected to support learning as it relates to the Performance Expectation.

Anchoring Phenomena and Storylines

Giving your students anchoring phenomena to refer back to at the start of each unit will help them focus on the goal of the unit. It helps students to master Connecticut science standards and NGSS, as well as relate real-world experiences to what they’re learning in the classroom.

Anchoring phenomena prompts engagement by encouraging students to make connections with the world around them, then later ties back during the Performance Assessment. Additionally, each lesson has its own phenomena which work together as part of the storyline to build conceptual understanding of the anchoring phenomenon. Anchoring phenomena are introduced with an embedded video, such as this example.

Space-The Solar System: Performance Assessment Storyline

Lesson-Level Phenomena

Many scientific themes and concepts run throughout our entire curriculum, but each lesson begins with lesson-level phenomena to help your students pinpoint the goal of a particular lesson. Each lesson-level phenomena will lead students back to the unit’s anchoring phenomena for comprehensive scientific knowledge.

In Grade 3, students observe why your hair might stick up when sliding down a slide

In Cells and Genetics, students observe why humans have opposable thumbs, but turtles do not.

In the Matter program, students observe the phenomenon why some liquids do not mix with other liquids.

3-Dimensional Lesson Investigations

NGSS has established three dimensions of science learning to ensure that all science students across the U.S. learn the necessary skills and have the appropriate foundational knowledge to succeed within the science classroom and beyond. The three dimensions include crosscutting concepts, disciplinary core ideas, and science and engineering practices. This multi-dimensional approach to science education helps students focus on central scientific themes that apply to all fields of science, explore real-world opportunities for hands-on scientific experiences, and connect knowledge and skills from one scientific discipline to several others.

Bead a bracelet to replicate how mutations can change the structure and thus the function of a protein.

Grow plants with and without water or light to determine what plants need to grow.

Develop a model that shows the relationship between particle motion and states of matter.

Engineering Challenges

Critical thinking skills, problem-solving abilities, teamwork, and collaboration are the driving forces behind engineering challenges. Students can participate in real-life experiments and challenges to teach them foundational science skills based on Connecticut science standards and NGSS.

Design, build, test, and modify a structure for dispersing seeds that mimic how plants disperse seeds in nature.

Build an earthquake table and then design the tallest structure possible while still being quake-resistant.

Lesson-Level Assessment

Each lesson comes with lesson-level assessments for you to use in whatever way you see fit. They are designed to help you teach well and to gauge your students’ understanding of a particular lesson, and are always in line with NGSS and Connecticut science standards.

NGSS has changed how students are assessed. Lesson Assessments include a variety of selected response and constructed response questions that incorporate the 3-Dimensions, core ideas, practices, and crosscutting concepts. You’ll be provided with completed answer guides and rubrics. View how tightly we align with the NGSS correlations. Questions are designed to mimic the CAST format. Students practice taking assessments online to prepare for state tests.

Performance Assessment

Demonstration of skills is a vital part of assessments within science education. Our performance assessments are designed to give your students a chance to show you that they understand and can apply various concepts.

Each unit of Bring Science Alive! includes a Performance Assessment. The activities, written and oral assignments allow teachers to assess student understanding of science contents within the context of the phenomenon discussed during the unit storyline.

By using a performance task, teachers can assess across three-dimensions a student’s ability to engage in Science and Engineering Practices, apply Crosscutting Concepts, and understand Disciplinary Core Ideas.

The Performance Assessment not only allows teachers to assess student learning but gives students a chance to demonstrate their learning in a meaningful way.

Everything You Need in One Place

Having standards-based lesson plans, activities, and assessments is an amazing tool for science educators. TCI has gone even farther, however, and put an endless amount of resources all in one place to make your job simpler and to help your students learn and retain even more. Our online subscription allows you access to our ready-to-use lesson plans and presentations, teacher and student resources, assessments, interactive tutorials, and much more. Every aspect of our curriculum programs are based on NGSS and Connecticut state science standards, so you simply pull the resource you want to use and get to teaching.

Teacher Resources

Ready-to-teach lesson presentations, complete student resources, customizable 3-Dimensional assessments, and more are at your fingertips.

Student Resources: Print and Digital

We know sometimes it’s easier to have a physical copy. Our bundle makes it easy to keep a 21st-century classroom while using our textbook.

Materials

It can get busy preparing lessons and activities, grading, and staying ahead of your plans. This is why our Bring Science Alive! Materials Kits are prepared in advance for you, neatly organized to be integrated into each lesson.

Explore Our Science Programs

The goal of TCI’s science curriculum is to help students love and learn science, all while making educators’ jobs easier. All of our Bring Science Alive! programs utilize Connecticut science standards and NGSS, and they all teach age-appropriate scientific concepts that are important during schooling years and beyond.

Our elementary school science curriculum incorporates foundational scientific knowledge and practices that will ignite a love of science in even the youngest learners.

Our middle school science curriculum teaches the core concepts of life, earth, and physical science, while also continuing to build on core concepts that apply to all scientific fields and disciplines.

Elementary School Science

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Middle School Science

Middle School Science

Middle School Integrated Science

Middle School Integrated Science Curriculum

Teaching for the 21st-Century

The technology we utilize in our curriculum programs is fully integrative into whatever tech you have in your classroom. We have several interactive opportunities within our curriculum programs, as well as give you and your students access to both digital and print textbooks, along with a number of other interactive resources.

Science Features

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