Science Standards for Alaska

 WEBINAR SERIES Archive (2020)

Awareness of Science Standards for AlaskaIntroduction with Dept. of Ed and ED staff
By Teachers for Teachers(Note: Recordings have transcription attached)

January 27 for Introduction Recording

February 3 for Grades K-2 Recording        February 5 for Grades 6-8 Recording 

February 10 for Grades 3-5 Recording               February 12 for Grades 9-12 Recording

Introduction
Science and technology have been essential to the people for Alaska in its past, its present, and will be increasingly important in the future.  Providing a firm foundation in science education for all students in Alaska is a bright opportunity and essential challenge.  The State’s science standards provide the foundation for defining what students should know and be able to do in terms of scientific knowledge and skills.

Relationship of Science Standards for Alaska with NGSS

Science and technology have been essential to the people for Alaska in its past, its present, and will be increasingly important in the future.  Providing a firm foundation in science education for all students in Alaska is a bright opportunity and essential challenge.  The State’s science standards provide the foundation for defining what students should know and be able to do in terms of scientific knowledge and skills.

The Science Standards for Alaska are largely the same as the NGSS. The Writing Committee strongly supported the general architecture and approach of the NGSS, and made no changes to the scientific content. The revisions made by the Writing Committee included:

• Adding many examples of how the standards could be made more relevant for students in Alaska by showing applications of scientific principles and skills in an Alaskan context

• Rephrasing several content standards statements to make them clearer and/or more age-appropriate

• Fewer than a handful of NGSS content standards were combined, moved to a different grade, or deleted.

The Science Standards for Alaska contain two main parts: Performance Expectations and Foundational Statements. These are also found in the NGSS. In addition, the NGSS standards have a third part, called “Connections” that provide information for how the science content standards are related to each other and to other widely-used content standards in reading, writing, and mathematics. The Writing Committee recommended not incorporating the Connections information as a part of the state-adopted science content standards because such connections are likely to change more rapidly than the science standards. The Writing Committee endorsed DEED providing such information, along with other support materials as supplemental to the actual state science standards.

More Information and guidance for the Science Standards for Alaska is available on Department of Education and Early Development Website

Teacher Toolkit for Science Standards for Alaska

3 DIMENSIONAL TEACHING & LEARNING IN ALASKA

Science and Engineering Practices

what scientists/engineers and science/engineering students do

Asking questions and defining problems

Developing and using models

Planning and carrying out investigations

Analyzing and interpreting data

Using mathematics and computational thinking

Constructing explanations and designing solutions

Engaging in argument from evidence

Obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information

Cross-Cutting Concepts

Themes found in all fields of science that can frame our thinking

Patterns

Cause and effect

Scale, proportion, and quantity

Systems and system models

Energy and matter

Structure and function

Stability and change

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The new approach in science education, now adopted by the State School Board, promotes the interweaving of the two dimensions above with the Disciplinary Core Ideas assigned to each grade.

Some excellent resources for familiarizing yourself with this strategy can be found on the Science Standards page of the Department of Education and Early Development web page.