Equity in Science Education

Building on this design and findings from the Learning Through Performance study, researchers collaborated with San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) to develop and study project-based science courses for sixth, seventh, and eighth grade. This effort, referred to as Equity in Science Education, was led by Dr. Janet Carlson at Stanford University’s Center to Support Excellence in Teaching, Devin Krugman and Dr. Renee Marcy at SFUSD, and Dr. Andrew Krumm at Digital Promise.

Equity in Science Education Sixth Grade Science Course

In the Equity in Science Education Sixth Grade Science Curriculum, students explore the question: How can we use science and engineering practices to explore energy, climate, body systems, and the growth and reproduction of organisms? Students have opportunities to ask questions, design investigations, and use evidence to understand how to apply core concepts such as energy, climate, body systems, and heredity to address personally relevant and environmentally-focused challenges.

The curriculum, co-developed by Stanford University and San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD), consists of five units: an opening unit, Groupwork, which teaches students how to work as a team, and four project-based learning units with embedded performance assessments aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards. Each unit is focused on an Essential Question and includes a sequence of lessons corresponding to the research-based 5E Instructional Model, in which teaching and learning proceed through five stages: Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, and Evaluate.

The Groupwork unit is based on a framework developed by the Complex Instruction Program at Stanford University and includes skill-building tasks to help students acquire the experience and tools for effective and productive groupwork. In the Energy unit, students work collaboratively to plan, build, test, and revise a device that maximizes thermal energy transfer. In the Human Impact on Earth’s climate unit, students analyze the local impact of climate change and work together to create a plan to help their school meet one of SFUSD’s sustainability goals. During the Cells and Body Systems unit, students explore how interacting body systems are affected when caffeine is consumed, and they create presentations to argue whether caffeine should be banned from SFUSD. The Heredity and Reproduction unit engages students in designing a strawberry garden for their school to learn about how traits of organisms are inherited.