High School 3-Dimensional Learning with Carolina
The Knowledge Hub partnered with Leading school science supplier Carolina Biological to enable schools in six Middle Eastern countries to access Carolina’s award-winning science materials for teaching grades K-12 science. For the first time, teachers in United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar can choose some of the best science curriculum available from the United States of America. These resources for new-generation science classes support a modern approach to science learning to enable students to cope with the market needs facing a fifth industrial revolution with student-driven, hands-on, and phenomena-based Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Carolina’s rigorous and recently developed science materials for elementary school curriculum leverage e-learning and technology to enhance the science curriculum. These titles, Building Blocks of Building Blocks of Science® 3D and Smithsonian Science for the Classroom™ (1-5), are print, digital and hands-on format products that help teachers address new science standards. High school curriculum and investigations include Carolina Kits 3D® and Carolina Kits 3D® FLEX.
The Next Generation Science Standards* (NGSS) call for students to engage in scientific and engineering practices while applying core ideas and crosscutting concepts—the 3 dimensions. Carolina offers solutions to help you implement these practices in your classroom.
Standards Made Simple
Three-dimensional learning combines what scientists and engineers do with what students need to know and with concepts they need to understand into a learning progression.
Science and Engineering Practices
Science and Engineering Practices that describe what scientists do to investigate the natural world and what engineers do to design and build systems.
Disciplinary Core Ideas
Disciplinary Core Ideas with broad importance in one or across multiple science or engineering disciplines.
Crosscutting Concepts
Crosscutting Concepts that help students explore connections across Physical Science, Life Science, Earth/Space Science, and Engineering and Technology Design.
Scientific and Engineering Practices (SEPs)
These practices describe behaviors that scientists engage in as part of their daily work. By engaging in the practices, scientists increase the body of scientific knowledge, construct models, and build theories. SEPs require mastery of content knowledge as well as inquiry skills.
1. Asking questions (for science) and defining problems (for engineering)
2. Developing and using models
3. Planning and carrying out investigations
4. Analyzing and interpreting data
5. Using mathematics and computational thinking
6. Constructing explanations (for science) and designing solutions (for engineering)
7. Engaging in argument from evidence
8. Obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information
Disciplinary Core Ideas (DCIs)
These are the broad, key ideas within a scientific discipline. Without mastery of the ideas, students are unable to proceed to more complex investigations. Core concepts are revisited at many grade levels— each time with more depth and complexity—and should be teachable and learnable at the appropriate grade level.
Example:
Life Sciences
LS1: From molecules to organisms: Structures and processes
LS2: Ecosystems: Interactions, energy, and dynamics
LS3: Heredity: Inheritance and variation of traits
LS4: Biological evolution: Unity and diversity
Crosscutting Concepts (CCCs)
Crosscutting Concepts are applicable to all science disciplines and link them together. CCCs provide an organizational structure for students as they combine concepts and knowledge from one science discipline with another.
1. Patterns
2. Cause and effect: mechanism and explanation
3. Scale, proportion, and quantity
4. Systems and system models
5. Energy and matter: flows, cycles, and conservation
6. Structure and function
7. Stability and change
With each investigation, we’ve done the legwork for you.
Every Carolina Kits 3D manual features a table that identifies the specific dimensions addressed in the activities.
- Students make sense of an investigative phenomenon and driving questions.
- The teacher’s manual clearly identifies NGSS performance expectations and learning objectives
- The materials you need for a successful, safe lab experience are included in the kit.
- Digital tools facilitate and supplement the lab.
Count on Carolina’s Kit Development Process
Ready-to-Ship Kits
Meet the most demanding college-level learning objectives with off-the-shelf lab kits that are ready to ship. These college-level kits cover the most frequently taught science concepts and simplify your course design. Select any of the 23 kits covering 8 different subjects—all available for timely delivery.
The lab kits provide the same rigorous learning experiences as our design-your-own kits, while saving your students money.