Science Curriculum

The Dry Creek Joint Elementary School District is in the process of piloting new science materials for K-8 students. Dry Creek has established a Science Adoption Committee comprised of teachers, site administrators, and district leadership to determine the new materials that will best serve our students. This group has examined our district’s needs, as well as key research about best instructional practices for science instruction. The teams spent time reviewing each of the state approved curriculum for use of phenomena, presence of logical sequence, student understanding, monitoring student progress and teacher support.

The committee has identified the following three science programs to pilot during the 2019-2020 school year:

Kindergarten - Third Grade (K-3): Twig Science and McGraw Hill

Fourth - Eighth Grade (4-8): Discovery Science and McGraw Hill

Pilot classrooms from all grade levels in each of our schools will try each of the programs from August to December, spending 8 weeks with each curriculum. During the pilot process, data on both the teacher and student science experience and learning will be collected.

Dry Creek values feedback from students and parents. The following opportunities are available to review the curriculum and provide feedback from October 7th – December 6, 2019:

All curriculum will be on display at the District Education Center (8849 Cook Riolo Road) except November 25-29 when all schools and district offices will be closed for Thanksgiving break. Feedback sheets will be available for comments.
All curriculum will be available online. A google form to collect feedback is available at FORM.

We are excited about this opportunity to work with new materials as we continue to support the individual learning needs of each of our students in Dry Creek. The district will review and consider feedback from all DCJESD stakeholders and bring forward a final recommendation for new science materials to the School Board in February. We will begin using the newly adopted materials district-wide in the 2020-2021 school year.

Sincerely,

Shea Seffens

Director, Instruction and Professional Learning

Science Curriculum Information, Russian Translation (PDF)

Science Curriculum Information, Ukrainian Translation (PDF)

Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) for California Public Schools