Science

Class VI Science has two aims: first, it teaches students to engage in the natural world through inquiry and experimentation, and second, students develop an understanding of themselves as learners. By doing this, they hone a variety of important skills relating to time management, organization, critical thinking, and learning for understanding. The year starts with a study of the structure and function of the adolescent brain and how it changes as they learn. They then move on to explore some of the ways bias can affect science and how classification in science has been used to reinforce and create inequalities, stereotypes, and unequal power relationships. The year culminates with students collaborating to design and build solar-powered cars. This project takes students through the engineering model of problem-solving as they learn the fundamentals of forces, motion, and how alternative energy can help solve climate change. In addition to building and testing several solar car prototypes, students race their cars against other groups in a tournament-style culminating activity for an all-school audience.

In this course, students adopt the role of a scientist who constructs knowledge about the physical sciences through guided inquiry. Learning to navigate around a classroom laboratory in a safe manner, develop individual measurement skills, and collaborate with other student scientists is a central focus in this class. Following a Learning Cycle model, each lesson starts with an experiment from which is built vocabulary and content leading to the next experiment. Throughout the year students learn to use computer probes to collect data and create and interpret x-y line graphs and histograms, and hone their analytic skills as well as practice creating scientific arguments using the basic format of Claim, Evidence, and Reasoning. For much of the year, the students gather evidence for the atomic model of matter through the use of the IPS curriculum. Topics investigated include the metric system, mass and volume, characteristic properties of matter, solubility, pure substances and mixtures, compounds and elements, the atomic model of matter, and environmental justice. The year culminates in a two-week collaborative lab challenge where they have to separate and identify an unknown mixture.