Within this unit fourth grade students will explore the fascinating world of energy—its types, origins, and how it powers our daily lives. Through hands-on activities, demonstrations, and engaging reading and writing tasks, students will investigate potential and kinetic energy, explore energy conversion, and analyze how energy impacts motion and speed. By examining renewable and nonrenewable energy sources, students will evaluate the benefits and challenges of each, and craft opinion pieces to defend their energy choices.

The unit embraces three-dimensional learning by combining scientific inquiry, real-world problem-solving, and cross-cutting concepts. Students will enhance their literacy skills by engaging with informational texts and using claim, evidence, and reasoning to support their hands-on investigations. They’ll also design and build energy-efficient vehicles, utilizing their knowledge in creative and practical ways, all while tackling big questions like, "What is energy?" and "How do we use it efficiently?"

In this 4th grade unit, students will investigate waves and their role in communication. They begin by examining real-world images of communication phenomena, sparking curiosity and guiding their exploration of questions like: "What is a wave?" and "How do waves carry information?" Through hands-on activities, students investigate the properties and limits of sound, light, and water waves. They’ll model how sound waves travel to the ear, explore how the human eye processes light, and experiment with wave behavior.

Students will also tackle engineering challenges, such as building a conference cup phone and designing solutions to send messages from a deserted island. By creating coded messages using different materials, they learn how technology can overcome the limits of wave communication. This unit fosters three-dimensional learning, blending scientific inquiry, practical problem-solving, and cross-cutting concepts, while enhancing literacy skills through explanations and models.

In this fourth grade unit, students explore the anatomy and physiology of plants and animals to understand how organisms survive, grow, and reproduce. Through hands-on experiments and observations students investigate key biological structures and their functions. They’ll ask critical questions like, "How do plants survive?" and "How do animals use memory and sensory inputs to survive?" Students will model and experiment with roots, stems, and leaves, demonstrating how these structures support plant life and examine animal senses, testing how sensory stimuli influence decision-making. By studying phenomena such as bee vision and fruit ripeness, students develop a deeper understanding of how living organisms interact with their environment.

This unit integrates literacy by engaging students with informational texts and prompting them to explain their findings through claim, evidence, and reasoning. The combination of reading, writing, and hands-on exploration strengthens students’ communication of scientific concepts while building a deeper understanding of life science through inquiry and cross-cutting concepts.