Second Grade - Science

Second-grade students engage in four 45-minute science lessons each week. They begin with the four-lesson launch unit to develop their science identities and foundational skills. Students continue to build their science identities and content knowledge through three phenomena-based units.

Each unit is 22 lessons that follow a single storyline. In science lessons, students do, talk, read, and write about science. Teachers emphasize using science to model a sense of awe and wonder about the natural and designed world; and to guide students to ask questions, design simple investigations, and to use their observations, data, and text-evidence to figure out the phenomenon.

SEPs are behaviors scientists and engineers engage in to figure out and deepen their understanding of content. Second-grade students predominantly practice:

• Asking questions based on observations about the natural or designed world(s)
• Developing and using models to make sense of science concepts
• Planning and carrying out investigations with guidance and peer collaboration
• Analyzing and interpreting data to describe patterns
• Designing solutions to solve specific engineering problems

DCIs are the fundamental scientific ideas in the four domains: Life, Physical, Earth & Space Science, and Engineering.

(Continue to view the disciplinary core ideas students figure out through the four second-grade science units.)

Scientists ask and investigate their questions. They keep track of their observations and thinking through drawing and writing in science notebooks. 

Plants depend on water and light to grow and animals for seed dispersal and pollination.

Solid and liquid matter can be observed and classified by their properties. When matter is mixed together, some mixtures take on the properties of their ingredients. The properties may change when the mixture is heated or cooled.

Wind and water can change the shape of the land by eroding sand and rock over long time spans.

CCCs are thinking tools that help students connect the ideas they are learning to ideas used across all domains of science. Questions that guide second graders to think across domains include:

• Systems and System Models: How can seeds get to new places in their habitats? (Plant and Animal Relationships)
• Cause and Effect: What happens to wax crayons when you heat them? (Properties of Matter)
• Scale, Proportion, and Quantity: How does rubbing the pumice together help us visualize how a cliff erodes? (Changing Landforms) 

• Engage in a Real World Problem
• Collect Evidence from multiple sources (through doing, talking, reading, writing, and visualizing)
• Construct Increasingly Complex Explanations
• Apply Knowledge to Solve a Different Problem

• Mistakes help us grow
• We talk to each other about science
• We can show science and engineering ideas in different ways

Science notebooks are a valuable thinking tool. They allow students to construct their understanding over time through drawing and writing, share their thinking with others, and develop language skills. They act as a storehouse for student observations, questions, and ideas throughout the year!

As scientists and engineers, second-grade students work with others while doing science. They carry out investigations, read and talk about science in pairs so that they can construct knowledge and develop language collaboratively.