This curriculum unit is designed for second-graders but can be adapted for use in grades one through three. It is intended to help teachers gain content understanding and pedagogical methods to effectively teach students about matter and motion, as a means of building the background knowledge necessary to understand occurrences in nature. The unit focuses on presenting students with inquiry-based science activities and experiments that build schema. The knowledge that the children will gain from these activities will directly support students in understanding the natural disasters and weather occurrences that they find so interesting.
This unit contains subject knowledge for teachers, a scope and sequence for the unit and a resource list for students and teachers. The lesson plans included in this unit contain inquiry-based lessons, experiments, as well as non-fiction reading lessons to bridge to literacy.
(Developed for Science and Reading, grade 2; recommended for Science, grades 2-3)
