To all TEEMSS2 Group 2 teachers:

The TEEMSS2 project is developing instructional materials for science in grades 3-8. We are developing 15 units, 9 of which are currently being tested. As a Group 2 teacher, we are interested in your students' understanding of the content of these units this year, as you teach with your current practices, and then comparing with next year when you use our materials.

On our website, http://teemss2.concord.org/application/TEEMSS2invitation.html, you can see a chart of all the units we are developing. This year we are testing the units for the standards of inquiry, physical science, and life science at each grade level.

The topics, and a brief description of each, are as follows. (Pick the ones that are listed for your grade level):

Grades 3-4

Inquiry: Exploring sound

Characteristics of sound and look at displays of sound waveforms. How the waveform is changed by changing loudness, pitch, and other qualities of the sound. How sound is produced by vibrating things and how sound causes things to vibrate. How vocal cords and eardrums work to transmit and receive sound. Simple musical instruments.

Physical science: Electricity

Aspects of battery and bulb function and behavior, a look at many everyday items that use electrical energy. Voltage. How batteries and bulbs function in circuits. Bulbs in parallel and series circuits.

Life science: Human and electronic sensing

Sensing temperature: Comparing the feeling of temperature with the result of a measurement. Still air, moving air, and water temperatures. How animals stay warm. Sense of sight: Comparing what a light sensor detects to what the eye sees. How animal eyes vary according to their needs for finding food and avoiding predators.

Grades 5-6

Inquiry: Water and air temperature

Energy transfer and temperature changes. Mixing water of various volumes and temperatures and developing a model for predicting mixing results. Also mixing air of various temperatures.

Physical science: Levers and machines

Simple machines: levers, pulleys, and inclined planes. How different simple machines can reduce the force required to lift an object. Combining different simple machines to make work easier by changing the size or direction of an applied force. Rube Goldberg machines.

Life science: Monitoring a living plant

Measuring temperature, relative humidity, and light in order to study a living plant. How plants breathe. The effect of light on plant respiration. The 24-hour day/night cycle.

Grades 7-8

Inquiry: Air pressure

Air pressure. How air pressure and changes in air pressure affect objects and items they use everyday. Measuring air pressure in different circumstances, and how and why changes in air pressure cause air or liquid to flow from areas of high pressure to low pressure (e.g., drinking through a straw, how our lungs work). Boyle's law is also covered but not the effects of temperature on air pressure.

Physical science: Understanding motion

Distance-time graphs. Creating and interpreting graphs for different kinds of motion - while speeding up, slowing down, and while changing directions. Calculating speed as distance/time.

Life science: Evolution

How populations behave, and what leads to either stable population levels, population explosions, or extinction (e.g., population of sheep and grass). Considering the effect of several variables, such as starting population, rate of grass growth, and birthrate. How the genetic makeup of populations is affected by selection pressures. How a genetic trait might drift under various conditions. Whether a mutation might become common in the population.