The goal of OpenSciEd is to develop a K-12 program designed to address standards based on the Framework for K-12 Science Education, specifically the NGSS. A three-year middle school sequence is now available in full!

This middle school unit on sound starts off with students exploring a perplexing phenomenon where sounds and voices are heard coming from a paper cup and needle as a plastic disc (a record) is spun underneath it. This phenomenon fuels a series of questions and ideas for investigations to pursue about how sound is produced, how it travels, and how it is detected and encoded. (PS4, LS1, PS2, PS3)

This middle school unit begins with news reports about the growing prevalence of backyard chicken coops across the country. Disagreements about why some chicken eggs hatch into baby chickens and others do not, as well as competing models about what is going on inside eggs before they hatch, spark student questions leading to investigations of where babies of chickens come from and how they develop. These investigations help students uncover the role that food, blood, cells, and tissues play in the in the development of embryos and growth in different animals. (LS1, LS4)