Science 3

Unit 1: Materials

Organizing idea: materials have the potential to be changed. Sorting and testing rocks and minerals, choosing the right material to build with, and testing how well a material or design does its job.

• Sorting rocks by their properties
• How rocks and materials can change

• Matching a material to the job

• Testing a material or design fairly

Unit 2: Forces and Movement

Organizing idea: forces affect how objects move. Pushes and pulls that start, stop, and turn things, and how bigger forces make bigger changes in movement.

• Forces start, stop, and turn things

• How the size of a force changes the movement

Unit 3: Earth's Surface

Organizing idea: Earth's surface changes, and its layers hold stories of the past. How the surface changes over time and how rock layers and fossils tell us about long ago.

• How Earth's surface changes

• Layers hold stories of the past

Unit 4: Living Things

Organizing idea: plants and animals interact with each other and within their environments. Plant growth and change, animal life cycles, and how living things depend on each other and their surroundings.

• What plants need to grow and change

• Stages of an animal life cycle

• How plants, animals, and places connect

Unit 5: Creativity and Computational Thinking

Organizing idea: creativity connects to computational thinking. Planning clear step-by-step instructions and finding and fixing mistakes when the steps do not work.

• Planning clear step-by-step instructions
• Finding and fixing mistakes in the steps

Unit 6: Investigating Like a Scientist

Organizing idea: investigation builds knowledge. Asking questions, observing carefully, recording what you find, and using what you learn to answer the question.

• Asking a question and observing carefully
• Using findings to build what you know