Fourth Grade - Science

Fourth-grade students in SFUSD do, talk, read, and write to figure out how the world works. They engage in one hour of science instruction four times a week, starting with a five-lesson launch unit, then four 22-lesson content units. Alternate with history/social studies units throughout the year.

Students initiate science identities and foundational skills in Launch Unit 0 and then build on them and their content knowledge in the life science, physical science, and earth and space science units that follow. 

Prioritize using science to model a sense of awe and wonder about the natural and designed world, and guide students to ask questions, conduct investigations, and use their observations, data, and text to construct explanations and design solutions to problems.

SEPs are behaviors scientists and engineers engage in to figure out and deepen their understanding of content. Fourth-grade students predominantly practice:

• Asking questions about what would happen if a variable is changed.
• Developing and using models to describe and predict phenomena.
• Engaging in argument from evidence to listen, evaluate, and compare competing ideas.
• Constructing explanations of what is observed
• Designing solutions to solve engineering problems.

DCIs are the fundamental scientific ideas in the four domains: Life, Physical, Earth & Space Science, and Engineering.

(Continue to view the disciplinary core ideas students figure out through the four fourth-grade science units.)

Scientists observe, wonder, collaborate, and record their thinking in science notebooks.

All energy comes from a source. Energy can be transferred by electric currents to be converted into motion, sound, heat, or light.

Animals’ internal and external structures help them get information about their environment that helps them survive.

Different sediments form different layers of rock. Rocks are eroded by wind, water, plants, and ice to reveal evidence of past environments.

Sound energy travels in a pattern of motion called a wave.

CCCs are thinking tools that help students connect the ideas they are learning to ideas used across all domains of science. Questions that guide fourth graders to think across domains include:

• Systems and System Models: Why did all the buzzers stop working when I added a third buzzer? (Energy Conversions)
• Structure and Function: How do structures in the eye help an animal see? (Vision and Light)
• Stability and Change: Why do you think the sedimentary rock layer is older than the layer above it? (Earth’s Features)
• Patterns: What patterns do you notice about how the rope moves when you make a wave? (Waves, Energy, and Information)

• Engage in a Real World Problem
• Collect Evidence from multiple sources (through doing, talking, reading, writing, and visualizing)
• Construct Increasingly Complex Explanations
• Apply Knowledge to Solve a Different Problem

• Mistakes help us grow
• We talk to each other about science
• We can show science and engineering ideas in different ways

Science notebooks are a valuable thinking tool. They allow students to construct their understanding over time through drawing and writing, share their thinking with others, and develop language skills. They act as a storehouse for student observations, questions, and ideas throughout the year!

As scientists and engineers, fourth-grade students work with others while doing science. They carry out investigations, read and talk about science in pairs so that they can construct knowledge and develop language collaboratively.