Connecticut State Department of Education

Connecticut Core Standards

Classroom Resources and Activities - Science

Resources for Lesson/Unit Development

  • Student Achievement Partners website offers a variety of free, high-quality materials to help educators align their instruction to the Common Core State Standards and raise student achievement. Resources include materials and guides aligned to the standards, essential actions for school and district leaders, professional development modules, and information on how educators can support the CCSS outside of the school. (acheivethecore.org)
  • Lesson Planning Tool: Content and Structure - Plan with the Common Core in mind. The Lesson Planning Tool (digital version only) guides teachers through a series of prompts about the lesson content, structure, and activities to ensure the Shifts required by the CCSS are central to the lesson.(achievethecore.org) 
  • Tchers’ Voice Squad Report: Resources from National Science Teachers Association 2016 Conference- This blog by Catherine White Guimaraes shares tips, resources, and more from the recent conference. (the Teaching Channel). 
  • A Framework for K-12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas – by the National Research Council, 2012 offers free electronic access to the NRC Report upon which the NGSS were based. It is recommended reading for teachers trying to understand NGSS. (nap.edu) 
  • The Concord Consortium: STEM Resource Finder - This website provides links to free, open source educational activities, models (simulations), and software tools. The NGSS Pathfinder helps to identify appropriate resources for specific grade levels. (concord.org)    
  • PhET Interactive Simulations - This website offers a collection of free, open source, research-based, interactive simulations related to science and mathematics. Resources are searchable by science domain, subtopics, and grade level and includes teacher developed lesson plans for most simulations. (phetcolorado.edu)    
  • Phenomena for NGSS – This collection of images, descriptions and explanations of phenomena has potential use in an NGSS aligned unit or lesson. Explanations of why and how to use phenomena in the classroom are provided.(ngssphenomena.com)  
  • Ready, Set, SCIENCE! Putting Research to Work in K-8 Classrooms - by the National Research Council, 2007 offers free electronic access to a book that summarizes research on learning and explains types of instructional experiences that help K-8 students learn science with understanding. It also informs NGSS 3-dimensional approaches. (nap.edu) 
  • ReadWorks - The largest, highest-quality library of nonfiction and literary articles, carefully curated to support reading comprehension. (readworks.org)
  • Gold Standard Project Based Learning (PBL): Align to Standards – This blog by John Larmer, posted on January 19,2016, is one example of the short, informative blogs that can be found on this website.  Other related titles in an extensive Archive collection include: Gold Standard PBL: Project Based Teaching Practices, April 21, 2015 and Gold Standard PBL: Scaffold Student Learning, January 29, 2016. (bie.org)   
  • Authentic Products Aligned to Common Core Writing Standards – This document focuses specifically on the writing component of final products.  Ideally, these products are created for an authentic audience, one beyond the classroom and the teacher.  (Expeditionary Learning, Plaut and Passchier, January 2015)
  • “Teachers Interview Scientists: Statistics from the Real-World,” Dorothy Sutton, a teacher, and scientist Jared Schuetter talk about how to prepare students for science in the workplace. (posted on February 26, 2016 on the Ohio Stem Learning Network)
  • Kindergarteners Are Born Engineers - Tchers’ Voice Blog by Tom Jenkins July 9, 2015 (teaching channel.org)  
  • Literacy in the Digital Age: Five Sites with High Quality Informational Text – by Steve Figurelli and Natalie Franzi, August 19, 2015 posted on Tcher’s Voice, a blog series from Teaching Channel with Student Achievement Partners about digital literacy tools and their effective use by educators. (teachingchannel.org)    
  • Research Packs/Expert Packs: Building Knowledge and Vocabulary - This website provides targeted grade level text sets on various topics. Materials include graphic organizers and writing scaffolds to support students in acquiring, organizing, and using their new vocabulary and knowledge. A sampling of titles includes, “Keeping the Earth Healthy”, “Biodiversity”, and “How Animal Activity Impacts the Environment.” (achievethecore.org)
  • Technology & Engineering Reading Passages – These K-12 non-fiction and literary passages and question sets helps build students' background knowledge and vocabulary and improves reading comprehension on topics related to technology and engineering. (readworks.org)     
  • National Science Teachers Association - Connections to the Common Core State Standards for Literacy in Science and Technical Subjects.
  • Text-Dependent Question Resources - provides tools to help write and evaluate text-dependent questions, as well as a link to lesson materials with examples of text-dependent questions (achievethecore.org)  
  • ELA Instructional Samplers: These ELA Common Core Samplers were written by Delaware teachers and specialists and are designed to assist educators in incorporating the three “big” shifts into their instruction and to provide a model for assessments that can inform instruction.  The samplers include grade-appropriate complex texts, academic vocabulary, and text dependent questions. (Delaware Department of Education)
  • Academic Word Finder - will help you identify which words to focus on with your students to help them become better readers. Copy and paste any text into the tool, select your grade, and the tool will generate a list of academic vocabulary words along with definitions and sample sentences. You can use the Academic Word Finder to guide instruction or develop a classroom handout or quiz. (achievethecore.org)
  • In Common: Effective Writing for All Students - provides a range of examples of Common Core-aligned student work to demonstrate how a student’s writing skills can progress as they gain fluency across the three major types of Common Core writing: argument/opinion writing, informative/explanatory writing, and narrative writing. (achievethecore.org)    
  • Physics Girl - In this series from PBS Digital Studios, Dianna Cowern shows how the physical world works by using everyday experiments and questions to demonstrate basic scientific ideas. Topics include: Astrophysics, Do-It-Yourself Demonstrations, Motion and Relativity, Optics and Waves, and Real Physicists, Real Talk. Several experiments with YouTube videos are cited. A sampling of experiment titles includes: “How to Make a Cloud in Your Mouth”, “How to Make a Hurricane on a Bubble”, “Stacked Ball Drop” and “How to Float a Ping Pong Ball on Air- The Coanda Effect.” (pbslearningmedia.org)  
  • Algodoo—is a 2-D physics sandbox that enables engaged, conceptual physics inquiry. Students build working systems of environments and objects that all have interacting physical characteristics for teaching basic physics. It removes some of the complexity and confusion of 3-D, and it offers useful tutorials for new users and is also useful for classroom teachers who want to prepare virtual demos that students learn from and remix in school or at home. Common Core-aligned standards are listed. (www.graphite.org/game/algodoo)     
  • App Building for Everyone—This website offers a complete introduction to app programming concepts and methods for grades 6-12. Common Core-aligned standards are listed. (www.graphite.org/website/appinventororg) 
  • WebTools4U2Use: Finding the Right Tool (webtools4u2use.wikispaces.com)
  • Gooru: is an open and collaborative online community used by teachers to find standards-aligned, interactive learning materials tied to Common Core. (goorulearning.org)

Elementary School

  • Original Physics Experiments – This video illustrates the results of what happens when students are given the opportunity to design experiments to answer their own questions. (Santa Fe School for the Arts & Sciences, Santa Fe, NM, grades: 1, 2)
  • Snakes Are Born This Way – In this video, students completed extensive research on snakes, wrote, performed, and produced the song “Snakes Are Born This Way”, created a music video, and posted it on YouTube. (Conservatory Lab Charter School, Boston, MA, grade: 2)
  • What's Up: Frequently Asked Questions About Space, By Kids, For Kids – This video shows students brainstorming questions they had about astronomy with a local physicist. Using multiple sources, students then researched the answers to their own questions and shared their answers via both text and illustrations. They worked with the school’s visual arts teacher in the conception and composition of their illustrations. This illustrated book was made available in their school store. (Genesee Community Charter School, Rochester, NY, Grade: 3)
  • What's Out There In this video, students created “What’s Out There?” a true or false book about the universe. Students chose their own topic to research, wrote their question and answer, and created illustrations. (Conservatory Lab Charter School, Dorchester, grade: 4)
Middle School
  • Food For Thought – This video showcases students creating a cookbook with original recipes and illustrations as part of a project focused on why and how to make healthy food choices. (High Tech Middle Chula Vista, San Diego, CA, grade: 6)     
  • Revitalizing Rochester – This video features a civic project in which students successfully led a campaign to revitalize their community. Students researched and collected information about other cities around the United States who have engaged in successful waterway-revitalization projects.  They then wrote a position paper titled “Revitalize Rochester” for the reconsideration of an unsuccessful bond issue to revitalize the Rochester downtown by restoring water to the Erie Canal waterway and building a surrounding commercial district. (Genesee Community Charter School, Rochester, NY, grade: 6)
  • You Grotto Go to Hemlock Gorge – In this video, students investigated geological processes in a local gorge in order to create a book titled, “You Grotto Go to Hemlock Gorge,” that turned them into artists and geologists in their effort to graphically illustrate and clearly explain the geological process they had investigated. (Conservatory Lab Charter School, Brighton, MA, grade: 6)
  • ReVOLT – This video shows students engaged in an interdisciplinary project using design to solve a real world problem: the limitations imposed by our current ways of using energy. After investigating science and social issues such as environmental concerns behind wind power, they used what they learned in all of their classes to design and build devices that solved a modern-day energy need in a unique way. Designs and research were pitched to a panel of community members. (King Middle School, Portland, ME, grade: 8) 
High School
  • Water Quality and the Future Use of Loon Pond – In these video, students conducted a full, professional water quality assessment on a local pond to determine if it was safe to be re-opened as a public recreation area. In addition to learning how to conduct scientific field work, students gained a deep understanding of environmental science standards, scientific reading and writing standards, and what it meant to provide an important service for their community. (Springfield Renaissance School, Springfield, MA, grade: 9)
  • Perspectives of San Diego Bay: A Field Guide– This video showcases students engaged in collaboration across academic disciplines to create a professional-quality field guide that met a genuine market need in their community. Students researched, collected data, did analysis, and designed the field guide with the help of teachers, scientists, and community members. (Gary and Jerri-Ann Jacobs High Tech High School, San Diego, CA, grades: 9-12)
  • Chemistry & Conflict - This video shows a cross-disciplinary research project where students studied both chemistry and history to create a book titled “Chemistry and Conflict.” To create this book, pairs of students worked together to research the relationship between a chemical element or compound to both a historical and a contemporary conflict. This project started with extensive research, leading to the writing of a research paper. Students also made copper etching illustrations to accompany their writing.  The students’ work is featured in a professionally designed and printed book. (High Tech High, San Diego, CA, grade: 10)    
  • The Eye of the Storm Learning Expedition – In this video, students who had already studied the chemistry and the policy of climate change began to study the human side of climate change to answer two questions: “What is the power of story to effect change?” and “How does a community sustain itself in the face of hardship?” They became documentarians and volunteers, tasked with understanding and interpreting the stories of Rockaway, NY’s residents who had been displaced by Hurricane Sandy. Through writing, photography, and film, students captured the stories of others. (Casco Bay High School, Portland, ME, grade 11)
  • Get Bent - This video shows students collaborating in a project-based learning activity as they design and build a chair with a curve or a bend by researching the history of design and marketing.  (High Tech High, San Diego, CA, grade: 12)

Other Projects Aligned to Core Standards

EQuIP Resources for Common Core Alignment

Toolkits and Materials

Resource Libraries

  • iCONN, a comprehensive search engine for educators and students – provides all students, teachers and administrators with free online access to a wealth of essential library and information resources from trustworthy sources. It is freely accessible from every school, library, and home. Access from home requires a public library card. (iconn.org)
  • Science.gov searches over 60 databases and over 2200 selected websites from 15 federal agencies, offering 200 million pages of authoritative U.S. government science information including research and development results. Science.gov is governed by the interagency Science.gov Alliance. (science.gov)   
  • CommonLit—This website offers teachers a free collection organized by theme and Lexile level of news articles, poems, short stories, historical documents, complex nonfiction texts (including paired texts), related multimedia (videos, audio, and interactive websites, teacher guides, parent guides, text-dependent questions, and discussion questions. A new text view allows students to interact with the text on laptops and other one-to-one devices.(commonlit.org)  
  • Student Discovery Sets - The new Library of Congress Student Discovery Sets brings together historical artifacts and one-of-a-kind documents on a wide range of topics, from history to science to literature. Interactive tools let students zoom in, draw to highlight details, and conduct open-ended primary source analysis. Full teaching resources are available for each set. (Library of Congress/iBooks)  
  • Tween Tribune – This news website by the Smithsonian provides daily news articles for K-12 students. Articles are selected by professional journalists working in collaboration with teachers and students. As a Smithsonian resource, it has a plethora of science and history focused articles. There are also articles in Spanish, different lexile levels, technology, a junior version for grades K-4 and more. (tweentribune.com)    
  • Open Professionals Education Network - This website provides openly licensed education content that can be used in whole or in part. It includes links to photos, videos, audio/music, general recorded lectures & video tutorials, open textbooks, simulations and animation, as well as modular course components and complete courses. (open4us.org)
  • Science News for Kids – This website has engaging science news stories appropriate for elementary and middle school readers. (It's the kids' version of the Science News magazine site by the Society for Science & the Public.) The site can be a great source for kids who need practice analyzing and citing scientific text. Kids will find the topics interesting and relevant, from American cannibalism to predicting tsunamis. Readings are organized by science topic: Atoms & Forces, Earth & Sky, Human & Health, Life, and Technology & Math.  Common Core aligned standards are listed; articles give a readability level. (sciencenewsforkids.org)
  • Newsela, the education technology company helping students master reading and critical thinking, is partnering with Scientific American to introduce Newsela for Science, science articles and text sets aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Now, students of any reading ability can access hyper-relevant science content through Newsela’s leveled articles.
  • FYI for Kids is a collection of engaging and high-quality magazine articles designed to enhance the Common Core classroom’s reading repertoire. The objective of this project is to demonstrate a type of text that is essential for increasing students’ engagement in and proficiency with complex texts—short engaging articles that communicate critical information. (textproject.org)
  • OPEN eBOOKS is a free resource for educators who work directly with students attending Title 1 schools, students with disabilities, and several other qualifying categories. Each collection of titles has a variety of genres, of both fiction and informational text. (openebooks.net)
  • OpenEd offers Common Core resources in a K-12 educational resource catalog Appendix: Protocols and Resources for ELA CCSS Curriculum, Grades 3-8 (Expeditionary Learning) This Appendix contains a comprehensive listing and description of the protocols that teachers could use to check for understanding, different types of ongoing assessment strategies, and teacher strategies for building academic vocabulary. (opened.io)
  • The Hartford Courant Newspaper in Education Program is an online interactive classroom resource to help teachers connect students to the news. Many of the resources list Common Core Standards. Programs have been specifically designed to address the needs of Connecticut students in social studies, geography, science, math, and language arts. Resource pages are written by educators, museums, nature centers and other professional organizations. Current offerings include: Cartoons for the Classroom, Front Page Talking Points, Geography in the News, Green Room, News Video, Pulse of the Planet, This Week in History, Use the News and Words in the News. (nieonline.com)
  • The Washington Post Newspaper in Education Program allows all teachers to access topical NIE Curriculum Guides on a variety of topics in all subject areas. Common Core Standards aligned to the suggested activities are listed at the end of the most recent curriculum guides. (nie.washingtonpost.com)
  • CK-12: provides open-source content and technology tools to help teachers provide learning opportunities for students. Free access to high-quality, customizable educational content in multiple modalities suited to multiple student learning styles and levels allow teachers, students and others to innovate and experiment with new models of learning. (ck12.org)
  • Common Core State Standards and Library of Congress Primary Sources (blogs.loc.gov)