Physical Science Unit: Water Beach Vacation Lesson 8 Coding a Simulation: Changes to Water

Additional Information/Instructions

This Physical Science Unit on Water for grade three, allows teachers to combine multiple standards into a unit for students to explore the changes water undergoes when it changes state through heating and cooling. This themed unit provides a variety of SaM-1TV videos to introduce topics, purpose and proper procedures involving scientific exploration while SaM-1 is on a Beach Vacation.  The seventeen lessons incorporate Math and ELA standards to create an interdisciplinary approach to teaching science, while providing robust and rigorous science content.  Students are provided with a variety of hands-on activities and labs to explore and reinforce skills.  Students have the opportunity to plan, conduct a controlled experiment and use data as evidence. Every lesson includes possible station ideas to extend exploration and science skills. The unit also includes simple block-coding lessons, engineering design lessons and Model Eliciting Activities, MEAs, which allow the students to use their acquired skills from the unit in problem-based situations. The teacher can choose all or some of the lessons to create an all-encompassing STEM classroom. The unit also includes ideas for bulletin boards and the artwork needed to create interactive displays.