Page 147 - Career Readiness Catalog

USING ISSUES TO ANCHOR AN NGSS UNIT

The issues in SEPUP’s Issues and Science allow each unit to follow a
coherent storyline and provide context for the relevant anchoring and

investigative phenomena. These issues are the big ideas that students hear
about and often directly experience in the world around them. They connect

the why to the content and practice, “Why does it matter to learn this?”

Issue-oriented science forms the foundation of SEPUP’s instructional

materials and it is the only secondary science program to do so.

In Issues and Science, these kinds of issues help shape a coherent storyline

for students’ work and reflection. The connected activities and investigations
also require students to make sense of scientific evidence and to analyze
the trade-offs involved in personal and societal decisions. Connecting these

experiences back to the issue anchors the learning to specific, real-world

conversations happening today.

SEPUP believes that students should be able to explore and explain how
people and their environment are affected by real-world phenomena,

such as manufacturing waste or invasive species. These issues are carefully
selected because they often lack clear or known solutions.

Students are intrinsically motivated to learn when the context of their
activities and assessments feels authentic and when one activity to the next

is coherently connected.

Pictured right: A visual connection between the issue, phenomena, and activities
(including assessments) in Chemical Reactions, one of seventeen units from Issues
and Science: Designed for the NGSS.

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