Our science curriculum is based on the National Science Education Standards and is designed to foster deductive reasoning, critical thinking, and creativity. We believe successful learning occurs when students can use these skills to perform meaningful tasks such as decision making, investigation, experimental inquiry, problem solving and invention. We incorporate these activities into everyday science explorations. while performing relevant experiments, students are taught to work independently in the set-up, safe manipulation and maintenance of equipment.
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Grades 5 & 6
In the fifth grade, students begin to work with a science specialist in the lab. The focus of the class is on developing a range of science skills designed to help students see the discipline as a process, rather than a body of knowledge. All fifth and sixth grade students take part in the ISP (Independent Science Project), a month-long project in which students ask a question and are given time to seek answers through experiment, design and analysis. The findings are then presented to the school community using digital tools such as Prezi and Power Point while the student scientist fields questions and demonstrates new found understanding.
Grades 7 & 8
In seventh and eighth grades, students have an additional period of science to accommodate longer labs. Students are able to design, execute and deductively analyze experiments. In order to be well prepared for high school, students learn to use lab equipment, digital probes and interfaces for real-time graphs and instant data collection and analysis. They also read and extrapolate from science textbooks and current events, record accurate data, work cooperatively and share their findings with classmates and the FSS community via presentations, posters, papers, and other projects.
We take advantage of our location in Cambridge which has an abundance of nearby world-class science and technology research institutions. Classes have taken field trips to the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, the Angell Memorial Animal Hospital, the Nanotechnology Lab at Boston College, as well as many others, including on-site visits from experts in various scientific disciplines.