Science
Lower School
The scientific method serves as the foundation of our science curriculum, intricately woven into the study of science, engineering, and technology. Through inquiry-based instructional practices, students are encouraged to generate questions that can be answered through investigation. By continually asking deeper questions about their observations and the information they gather during exploration, students expand their curiosity and re-evaluate their initial conceptions.
Teachers facilitate conceptual understanding of increasingly complex ideas through demonstrations, experiments, and challenges. Scientific understanding is connected to students’ interests and life experiences, engaging them and highlighting the relevance of scientific knowledge. By focusing on core concepts in science and engineering, students have the opportunity to explore each idea in greater depth, with understanding developing over multiple grades at increasing levels of sophistication.
Curricular themes and essential questions are designed to inspire budding scientists and engineers to ask questions, generate predictions, explore both individually and collaboratively, make observations, and conduct research. Hands-on experiments and labs provide opportunities for further investigation, while science fairs, expositions, and research projects encourage students to draw on their passions and become experts in their areas of interest. The program aims to instill skills in asking questions, obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information, planning and executing investigations, developing and using models, analyzing and interpreting data, engaging in argument from evidence, and constructing explanations and designing solutions.
Disciplinary ideas are organized into four domains:
- Physical Sciences
- Life Sciences
- Earth & Space Sciences
- Engineering & Design
Fundamental, all-encompassing standards include:
- Students ask questions and conduct investigations using appropriate tools and techniques to gather data.
- Students think critically and logically on the relationships between evidence and explanations.
- Students construct and analyze alternative explanations and communicate scientific arguments.
- Students understand the connection between and among the three main disciplines of science (Physical, Life, and Earth Sciences).
Middle School
The AVS Science Department has developed a sequence of courses based on the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), providing
students with a solid foundation of scientific knowledge and refined skills in biology, earth science, and engineering. Our goal is to expose students to these scientific domains in a relevant and developmentally appropriate manner, encouraging them to make sense of phenomena and solve problems through scientific and engineering practices, disciplinary core ideas, and cross-cutting concepts.
Our courses are designed to scaffold important scientific skill sets while integrating cross-domain and interdisciplinary content in meaningful and authentic ways. We emphasize direct application, allowing students to test their thinking and make connections to real-world applications. This approach fosters critical thinking and prepares students for future scientific endeavors.
Courses include:
- Earth and Space Science: Space and Relativity, History of our Planet, Systems and Change
This course focuses on the introductory principles of astronomy, the Theory of Plate Tectonics, and Earth’s systems and natural cycles. Students will act as astronomers, geologists, and community advocates to examine the power of water, air, and rock in shaping our planet. Students will argue scientific claims by combining physical evidence with texts, media, and manipulation of data sets. Students will apply their understanding to make predictions and reasonable conclusions about Earth’s geological and biological future.
- Life Forces: Characteristics of Life, Community Interactions, Environmental Science
Students learn about life and develop their own scientific skills through different projects. What is necessary for a single cell or a complex animal to live? How is the human body formed and how do body systems work to be healthy? How are life forms classified? What is each organism's role and how does it interact within their environment including humans? From the cellular world to the four spheres, students will observe, model, experiment, collect, and analyze data on those components that make life a possibility on Earth. What effect do humans have on our environment and vice versa? Students will apply diverse scientific perspectives to investigate, synthesize, design explanations, and try to solve problems in the world, from microscopic to global issues that impact life as we know it.
- Life Matters: Waste Management, Housing in San Francisco, Sustainability
Get out in the community and help solve real problems! Science and Social Studies are teaming up their individual classes with shared projects. You will identify issues you care about in the city around us, and help come up with solutions. Some examples might include environmental health, public parks, or homelessness. Social studies will provide historical context: how did these issues start and what attempts have been made to solve them? Science will apply the scientific method, engineering process, and Next Generation Science Standards to create models, work with real organizations, and make changes in the field. Students will also have the opportunity to hear from guest speakers who are tackling these problems in the real world.
- Engineering Everyday:
Use the power of the engineering design process to design structures, protect against disasters, unlock the energy of molecules and atoms, and fly beyond the sky. In this course, students will learn how to use science practices and the engineering design process to solve real-world problems. We will first examine how we can construct buildings and bridges to survive California's earthquakes. Then we will look at solutions for humanity's relentless thirst for more energy. Finally, we will turn to the skies and beyond by studying the history and future of aircraft and spacecraft design. The first steps in humanity's colonization of the solar system begin now.
