OpenSciEd is a nonprofit organization that brings together educators, philanthropic organizations, curriculum developers, and professional development providers to improve science education through the development and implementation of high-quality, freely available science instructional materials. The goal of OpenSciEd is to ensure that all educators, from elementary to high school, have access to a free, coherent, rigorous, research-based set of instructional materials that will support all students in meeting the vision for science literacy described in A Framework for K-12 Science Education and the Next Generation Science Standards.
Score: 8
Awarded the NGSS Design Badge
Science Discipline: Physical Science, Earth and Space Science
Length: Unit
Year Reviewed: 2024
How can we find, make, and recycle the substances we need to live on and beyond Earth? This unit is designed to deepen student understanding of atomic structure, trends on the periodic table, and how atomic-level interactions influence bulk-scale properties. The unit focuses on what substances we would need to find, make, and recycle in order to successfully live and work beyond Earth, or in space. Lesson Set 1 has students investigate properties of different liquids and their interactions with surface materials. Students use this information to predict which liquid or event resulted in a land formation on Earth, the Moon, or Mars. Lesson set 2 has students fully develop atomic structure and use patterns in how different elements interact with each other to build out the periodic table. Students then are able to relate bulk-scale properties to atomic-scale interactions, like electronegativity. Students continue to connect the atomic- and bulk-scale properties in Lesson Set 3. They use the law of conservation of matter as they balance chemical equations. In Lesson Set 4, students focus on how we can recycle substances by investigating how differences in the structures of the substance affect our ability to recycle it into different substances.
Link to Materials
The following link will direct you to the OpenSciEd Unit C.3 Molecular Processes in Earth Systems unit page: C.3 Molecular Processes in Earth Systems
NGSS Design Badge
Awarded: Feb 26, 2024
Awarded To: OpenSciEd Unit C.3 Molecular Processes in Earth Systems
The NGSS Design Badge is awarded only to the version of this unit that was reviewed. If any modifications are made to this unit, the revised version cannot be promoted as having earned the badge.
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