Meeting Standards
The Wild Treasures’ curriculum is aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards and the National Science Teachers Association's Position on the Teaching of Climate Science. It is enhanced with common core standards, integrated with multiple disciplines, and developed through systems thinking. The program focuses on student immersion with real problem solving and hands-on and minds-on explorations. Browse the multitude of standards that Wild Treasures is aligned with below!
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National Science Teachers Association's Position on the Teaching of Climate Science
The National Science Teachers Association released a Climate Science Position Statement in September 2018. Wild Treasures' approach to teaching students about climate change is closely aligned to NSTA's suggestions. Read the entire position statement here.
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"NSTA recommends that teachers of science...
- deliver instruction using evidence-based science, including climate change, human impacts on natural systems, human sustainability, and engineering design...
- teach climate change as any other established field of science and reject pressures to eliminate or de-emphasize climate-based science concepts in science instruction...
- analyze different climate change mitigation strategies with students, including those that reduce carbon emissions as well as those aimed at building resilience to the effects of global climate change...
- analyze future climate change scenarios and their relationships to societal decisions regarding energy-source and land-use choices"
Next Generation Science Standards: Disciplinary Core Ideas
Earth and Space Sciences
ESS2.A: Earth Materials and Systems
Life Sciences
LS2.A: Interdependent Relationships in Ecosystems
Engineering, Technology, and Applications of Science
ETS1.A: Defining and Delimiting Engineering Problems
ESS2.A: Earth Materials and Systems
- Earth’s major systems are the geosphere (solid and molten rock, soil, and sediments), the hydrosphere (water and ice), the atmosphere (air), and the biosphere (living things, including humans). These systems interact in multiple ways to affect Earth’s surface materials and processes. The ocean supports a variety of ecosystems and organisms, shapes landforms, and influences climate. Winds and clouds in the atmosphere interact with the landforms to determine patterns of weather.
- Human activities in agriculture, industry, and everyday life have had major effects on the land, vegetation, streams, ocean, air, and even outer space. But individuals and communities are doing things to help protect Earth’s resources and environments.
Life Sciences
LS2.A: Interdependent Relationships in Ecosystems
- The food of almost any kind of animal can be traced back to plants. Organisms are related in food webs in which some animals eat plants for food and other animals eat the animals that eat plants. Some organisms, such as fungi and bacteria, break down dead organisms (both plants or plants parts and animals) and therefore operate as “decomposers.” Decomposition eventually restores (recycles) some materials back to the soil. Organisms can survive only in environments in which their particular needs are met. A healthy ecosystem is one in which multiple species of different types are each able to meet their needs in a relatively stable web of life. Newly introduced species can damage the balance of an ecosystem.
- Matter cycles between the air and soil and among plants, animals, and microbes as these organisms live and die. Organisms obtain gases, and water, from the environment, and release waste matter (gas, liquid, or solid) back into the environment.
Engineering, Technology, and Applications of Science
ETS1.A: Defining and Delimiting Engineering Problems
- Possible solutions to a problem are limited by available materials and resources (constraints). The success of a designed solution is determined by considering the desired features of a solution (criteria). Different proposals for solutions can be compared on the basis of how well each one meets the specified criteria for success or how well each takes the constraints into account.
- Research on a problem should be carried out before beginning to design a solution. Testing a solution involves investigating how well it performs under a range of likely conditions.
- At whatever stage, communicating with peers about proposed solutions is an important part of the design process, and shared ideas can lead to improved designs.
- Different solutions need to be tested in order to determine which of them best solves the problem, given the criteria and the constraints.
Next Generation Science Standards: Crosscutting Concepts
Systems and System Models
Influence of Science, Engineering, and Technology on Society and the Natural World
- A system can be described in terms of its components and their interactions.
Influence of Science, Engineering, and Technology on Society and the Natural World
- People’s needs and wants change over time, as do their demands for new and improved technologies.