In a presentation at the June 23 East Penn School District school board meeting, the directors were introduced to the proposed K-12 science curriculum.

The team of educators presenting included: Dr. Erin Murphy, Dr. Tricia Gutman, Dr. Mike Milhalik and Dr. Jessica Thacher from the office of teaching and learning. They were joined by Grade 1 teacher Cassidy Larkin, Grade 2 teacher Johnny Guignet, Grade 4 teacher Ryan Peters, Grade 5 teacher Jen Rivera and instructional coach Dylan Peters.

To better prepare students for the science curriculum, a Math Course 2-3 pilot is being offered to students who were enrolled in Math Course 1-2. Additional course options to meet students’ needs will be offered that condenses instead of skips content.

The pathways described are Course 1-2 for sixth grade, Course 2-3 for seventh grade and Algebra I for eighth graders. There is an opportunity for students to reenter Course 2 in seventh grade and take Course 3 in eighth grade if needed.

The acronym for Pennsylvania “STEELS” science standards stands for, science, technology and engineering environmental literacy and sustainability.

Science explores physical, life and earth and space sciences. Technology and engineering asks questions and imagine solutions while providing opportunities for designing and testing inventions. Environmental literacy and sustainability teaches about relationships between people and nature and how resources are used.

The curriculum is tailored for age appropriateness from designing a “severe weather bag” in kindergarten through creating a model showing the cycling of matter in an ecosystem in fifth grade.

The “Core Knowledge Resource Guide” is the main resource the team used to build their curriculum. The not-for-profit company provided project ideas, reading material and investigations. The curriculum writing team strategically streamlined the content to customize it for East Penn students.

A “unit slide deck” provides day-to-day slides with media, vocabulary videos, material lists and a read aloud component for K-2 only. The “student e-book” is in a dyslexic friendly font.

“Student e-book” for grades 3-5 allows the students to have the text read to them among other features.

Regarding district resources and finances, team members explained existing, reusable lab materials like test tubes, scales and observation containers are to be utilized along with low budget consumables such as Post-it® notes, construction paper and index cards.

Performance-based assessments and observations designed for developing scientific thinkers are combined with traditional classroom assessments. STEELS-aligned Pennsylvania System School Assessment scores will assess the student’s retention of concepts and academic vocabulary.

The secondary STEELS presentation focused on Grades 6-12 with some curricular changes and no programmatic changes. The Pennsylvania STEELS performance expectations replace the NGSS PEs.

Phenomena and problems will play a greater role to drive the learning experiences. This requires story lines and a shift of sense-making.