Below are descriptions of the three units in kindergarten Amplify curriculum. 

植物和动物的需要:马利筋和帝王蝶. Students help a group of children figure out why there are no more monarch caterpillars in a community garden and how to bring them back. Students conduct hands-on investigations to figure out what plants need in order to live and thrive. They ask questions and learn about the system of plants and animals that live together in a habitat. They figure out patterns in the life cycles of living things by reading and analyzing photographs. 

推和拉:设计弹球机. Students take on the role of pinball machine engineers as they explore the effects of forces on the motion of an object. They consider cause and effect and structure and function as they design and build their own pinball machines. They analyze data from their tests using mathematical thinking. Students also gather evidence of forces at work in their school. 

阳光和天气:解决操场问题. Students work to solve the problem of why students at one fictional school are too cold during morning recess while students at another school are too hot during afternoon recess. They develop and use models to gather evidence about the effect of sunlight (energy) on Earth’s surface (matter) and how flooding during wet weather can be avoided. They gather local weather data and use concepts of scale, 比例, 用数量来解释. 

Below are descriptions of the three units in 1st grade Amplify curriculum.

Animal and Plant Defenses: Spikes, Shells, and Camouflage. Students advise an aquarium director by helping answer young visitors’ questions about Spruce the Turtle, 谁将很快被放回大海. They investigate how Spruce and her offspring can survive in the ocean, 特别是鲨鱼生活在这个地区. Students obtain information from videos and science books about how plants and animals survive and about parents and offspring. Students 使 physical models and write explanations to show what they learn about the structure and function of animal defenses.

光与声:木偶剧工程师. Students act as light and sound engineers to design and create a scene for a puppet show. Students ask questions and work to define the design problems they are asked to solve. They figure out cause-and-effect patterns related to light, 阴影, and sound by conducting hands-on investigations and 阅读科学书籍. They use both firsthand evidence and evidence from books to support their ideas.

旋转的地球:调查天空中的模式. 扮演着天空科学家的角色, students work to understand why the sky looks different to a young boy and to his grandma when they talk on the phone in the evening. Students plan and conduct investigations and find patterns in data to figure out what causes nighttime and daytime, 以及太阳在天空中位置的变化. Thinking in terms of systems helps students 使 sense of the Earth/sun system.

Below are descriptions of the three units in 2nd grade Amplify curriculum. 

Plant and Animal Relationships: Investigating Systems in a Bengali Forest. What is the connection between chalta fruit, elephants, and droppings? Students find out as they investigate an authentic mystery that occurred in a broadleaf forest habitat in northeastern India. They plan and conduct investigations to figure out what plants need to grow and ways that many plants rely on animals to disperse their seeds. Students use mathematical thinking and concepts of 比例 and quantity to 使 sense of their measurements and other data. They construct scientific explanations about how the parts of the Bengali forest work together as a system.

材料性能:设计胶. Students take on the role of glue engineers and design and test a glue for use at their school. They figure out cause-and-effect relationships related to heating and cooling materials, and find patterns in the properties of substances and mixtures. Students 使 arguments about effective glue recipes using the evidence they have gathered from investigations and science texts.

变化的地貌:消失的悬崖. Students act as geologists helping a recreation center director understand what is happening to a nearby cliff, 哪一点似乎发生了变化. 他们问一些关于地形的问题, 水, 和风力, and use hands-on models to figure out how small-scale changes to landforms can add up to large-scale changes over long periods of time. 因为他们获得了有关侵蚀的信息, they figure out how rock that appears stable in the short-term can actually change a lot over time. 他们创建图表来传达他们的发现.

Below are descriptions of the three units in 3rd grade Amplify curriculum.  

平衡力:调查浮动列车. Scientists and engineers have figured out a way to build a train that actually floats on air as it goes cruising down the track at high speeds. Students work to explain how this train works in order to reassure residents of a town that the train is safe. 学生们想出关于磁力的概念, 重力, and how forces can cause an object’s movement to change or stay stable. They communicate their ideas by making digital and physical models and by writing explanations.

Environments and Survival: Snails, Robots, and Biomimicry. Students play the role of biomimicry engineers studying a population of snails. They analyze data to figure out why some organisms are more likely to survive in their environment. They think about the systems made of organisms and the environment in which the organisms live to understand how the environment affects organisms’ likelihood of survival. Students apply what they learn about the structure and function of animals’ body parts to plan, 使, 以及解决问题的测试设计, such as a robot that can remove and grind up invasive plants.  

Weather and Climate: Establishing an Orangutan Reserve. 气象学家的角色, students investigate weather and climate patterns in order to 使 scientific arguments about where to establish an orangutan reserve. They use mathematical thinking to find patterns in weather data, 考虑规模, 比例, and quantity as they learn to 使 reliable measurements of weather. They also define and work to solve an engineering problem related to natural hazards.

Below are descriptions of the three units in 4th grade Amplify curriculum.

能源转换:在厄格斯敦停电. Students take on the role of systems engineers for Ergstown, 一个经常停电的虚构小镇, and explore reasons why an electrical system may fail. They obtain information from science books and system models to learn about types of energy, 能源, 能量转移, 能量转换. They define engineering problems related to the town’s electrical system and design wind turbines using what they have learned about energy and matter.

地球的特征:沙漠岩石峡谷的奥秘. 地质学家的角色, students investigate a fossil and the geologic history of the area where the fossil was found. Students write scientific arguments about how the fossil formed and what the environment of that area was like in the past. They gather evidence for their arguments by finding patterns in rock layers, 阅读科学书籍, 使用数字和物理模型. They analyze rock layers to draw conclusions about times of stability and times of change in the environments of a particular place.

Waves, Energy, and Information: Investigating How Dolphins Communicate. Students take on the role of marine scientists investigating how bottlenose dolphin mothers and their calves use patterns of sound to communicate across distances. Students ask questions about sound and gather evidence from physical models and a digital model. They investigate sound waves at the nanoscale and also investigate observable properties of sounds, 比如音量和音高. They use mathematical thinking to 使 sense of the wavelength and amplitude of waves.

Below are descriptions of the three units in 5th grade Amplify curriculum. 

Patterns of Earth and Sky: Analyzing Stars on Ancient Artifacts. 学生们扮演着天文学家的角色, helping a team of archaeologists explain the illustrations on a recently discovered, 一件缺失了一块的千年文物. Students use mathematical thinking to 使 sense of patterns in the sky, which they figure out by using physical and digital models and obtaining information from science books. They plan and conduct investigations to figure out how the spin and orbit of our planet are the cause of the daily and yearly patterns of stars we see in the sky.

建模问题:食物的化学. 食品科学家的角色, students work to identify a potentially hazardous food dye in a food coloring mixture, then to create a good-tasting and visually appealing salad dressing. They engage in hands-on investigations and use physical and digital models to gather evidence about mixtures at the observable scale and at the scale of molecules. They develop visual models and write explanations about mixtures, including whether they are likely to change or remain stable.

Ecosystem Restoration: Matter and Energy in a Rain Forest. Students take on the role of ecologists to figure out why a reforested section of the Costa Rican rain forest ecosystem is failing—the jaguars, 树懒, and cecropia trees in the area are not growing and thriving. Students use a digital model and terrariums as models to figure out the ways that animals and plants in an ecosystem get the matter and energy they need to grow. 他们分析生态系统的数据, and use evidence to 使 scientific arguments about what is causing the problem and to design restoration plans to address it.