SEPUP & the NGSS CA

Materials are not
purchased as “extras”

to supplement —
they are a critical
component included
in the program.

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USING ISSUES TO ANCHOR AN NGSS UNIT

The issues in SEPUP’s Issues and Science, Revised 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, Revised, 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 Ecology, one of seventeen units from Issues and
Science, Revised: Designed for the NGSS.

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Unit Focus

Provides context for relevant and connected anchoring and investigative phenomena within the unit.

The environmental impacts of introduced species.
Introduced species are changing environments all around us.

Unit Phenomena

What can we observe in science that makes us wonder?

Introduced species are changing their environments,
can cause problems for people, and affect biodiversity.

When people bring new organisms into an ecosystem,
there can be effects for people and the environment.

There are different organisms and different numbers of organisms in different places.

Different species tend to be found together and are
linked through feeding and energy relationships.

Physical and biological factors can disrupt an ecosystem to a small or large degree.

Activities

Students use SEPs, DCI, and CCC to explain, justify, and argue a point of view about the issue.

species research local data transects

black-worm habitats owl pellets and food webs

matter cycles - local nematodes population growth

modeling a new species abiotic impacts in ecosystems

evaluating & presenting solutions

Ecology, Issues and Science, Revised

L-1025-ECO03CA