All modules address a specific Next Generation Science Standard (NGSS) performance expectation, as well as allow students to experience the process of science.
General Schedule for 2nd-6th Modules:
- Observe a Phenomena
- Generate Variables
- Design an Experiment
- Carryout Experiment
- Analyze Data/Draw Conclusions
- Present Results via Poster Presentation Session
- Tie to Standards
| 2nd Grade | 6th Grade |
| 3rd Grade | 7th Grade |
| 4th Grade | 8th Grade |
| 5th Grade | 9th- 12th Grade |
| SciTrek Inspired Lessons by Classroom Teachers |
Online orientations are avaible for modules. To get access to these orientations e-mail scitrekadmin@chem.ucsb.edu.
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Module 1: Soil Water Retention In the Soil Water Retention Module students learn about what variables affect the amount of water a soil can absorb. They explore variables such as soil compactness, liquid amount, liquid thickness, soil amount and soil type. Students relate their findings back to landslides and then look at how engineers design solutions to prevent landslides. (2-ESS2-1) |
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Module 2: Plants In the Plants Module students grow "fast plants" and learn about what variables affect plant growth. They explore variables such as soil type, liquid amount, nutrient type, and light amount. In this module students work on graphing skills. (2-LS2-1) |
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Module 1: Mealworms In the Mealworms Module students learn about mealworms habitats. Students explore variables such as moisture level, food type, bedding, and light amount to determine which direction mealworms travel. Once they learn about a mealworms habitat the explore what happens to a species when their habitat changes. (3-LS4-3). |
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Module 2: Motion In the Motion Module students role balls down ramps and learn about what variables affect ball motion. They explore variables such as run material, ball mass, ball circumference, ramp length, run length, and ramp height. They use these studies to predict ball motion. In this module students work with fractions. (3-PS2-2) |
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Module 1: Respiration In the Respiration Module students are given bottles with blue solution in which they can change the contents and conditions of the bottles. When the bottles sit for 24 hours some of the bottles change to yellow. Students explore what makes the bottles change color. Students explore variables such as aquatic animal type, plant type, and light amount. The results of their finding show that the presence of CO2 is the cause of the color change. They use this to learn about respiration in plants and animals as well as photosynthesis. In addition they explore how CO2 levels are changing in the environment. (4-LS1-1). |
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Module 2: Wind Turbines In the Wind Turbine Module students explore how changing a wind turbine affect the amount of current the wind turbine produces. They explore variables such as blade materials, blade angle, turbine angle, amount of weights, run material, ball mass, and number of blades. They use the class results to engineer the wind turbine the produces the most current. In addition students explore types of energy and how energy is transferred. (4-PS3-4) |
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Module 1: Shadows In the Shadows Module students learn about shadows length and width. They explore variables such as light color, light height, light distance, object height, object length, and object width. They then apply these finding to predicting the shadows the sun make both in the winter and in the summer. (5-ESS1-2) |
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Module 2: Chromatography In the Chromatography Module, students learn about smears produced by pens. They explore variables such as pen type, pen color, liquid type, and initial dot height. They apply these findings to further understand matter and physical properties. Then, they are able to use types of physical properties to identify different substances. (5-PS1-3) |
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Module 1: Solar Power In the Solar Power Module, students learn about the amount of power that a solar panel can produce. They explore variables such as panel angle, temperature, and shading affects. They apply these findings to think about power sources and their effects on teh environment as well as ways to minimize our power consumption specifically when using light bulbs. They learn how to work in teams to plan their investigations to obtain data from their experiments that will allow them to make further predictions about the power produced by a solar panel at any configuration of the three variables. (MS-ESS3-3).
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Module 2: Thermal Transfer
In the Thermal Transfer Module, students learn how mixing four different substances affects the temperature change during a chemical reaction. They explore variables such as calcium chloride mass, sodium chloride mass, sodium bicarbonate mass, water volume, and stirring speed. They also learn that if they work as a class instead of individual group they get more usable information from the experiments and they are able to predict the temperature change regardless of the amount of the substance that are combined. (MS-PS3-4)
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Module 1: Best Bread Company In the Best Bread module, students investigate how to optimize yeast activation and growth using a given protocol of collecting CO2. CO2 is produced through cellular respiration in plants and animals -- a chemical reactions with oxygen to release stored energy. This module focuses on the best way to optimize CO2 using these variables; sugar amount, sugar type, stir speed, water bath temperature, salinity, and acidity/alkalinity. |
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Module 2: Conservation of Mass In the Conservation of Mass module, students will explore how chemical reactions affect mass by performing several different types of reactions. Near the end of the module, the students are tasked with an engineering problem where they need to create a closed system to contain all the gas created in the final reaction. The main goal is to have the students realize that gasses, either as reactants or products, should be considered when they are evaluating whether the total mass is conserved. The students are guided in a discussion about open and closed systems and how gasses must be included when considering conservation of mass. |
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Module 1: Waves In the Waves module, students explore the differences between types of waves, and how to manipulate aspects of these waves. Students will be able to manipulate an environment to achieve the goal of amplifying or nullifing sound as it travels from each end of the environment. In this module, students will observe mechanical and sound waves need a medium to pass through and how different frequencies effect the amount of energy in the wave. |
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Module 2: Evolving Germs In the Germs module, students explore the differences between types of bacteria. Students can manipulate the environment of these organisms to see how the variables they introduce affect the growth. In this module, the students observe that an antibacterial kills bacteria but not fungi, and an antifungal kills a fungus and not bacteria. The specific types of organisms used are E.coli and Saccharomyces Cerevisiae. Students are taught how to plate the organisms on agar. |
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Module 1: Macromolecules and Milk In the Macromolecules and Milk module, students will learn about the four major building blocks of life (fats, proteins, carbohydrate, and nucleic acids) and how organisms use them in different ways. Students will use different techniques to physically observe different quantities of these building blocks in synthetic samples. After they have mastered these techniques, they will move on to analyze and determine the concentration of macromolecules in both fresh and fermented milk. |
SciTrek Inspired Lessons by Classroom Teachers
1st Grade
- Tin Can Phones: for more information, please contact Tanya Juarez at tanya.juarez@venturausd.org
4th Grade
- Stomp Rockets: for more information, please contact Lauri Dahlin at lauri.dahlin@peabodycharter.net