Appendix
Implementing District Standards
This curriculum unit will address the following Next Generation Science Standards:
3-5-ETS1-1 Define a simple design problem reflecting a need or a want that includes specified criteria for success and constraints on materials, time, or cost.
3-5-ETS1-3 Plan and carry out fair tests in which variables are controlled and failure points are considered to identify aspects of a model or prototype that can be improved.
Students engage in these engineering design standards when collaborating with peers on growing sugar crystals. Given a fixed amount of raw materials, students will explore factors that contribute to the emergence of sugar crystals. At this grade level, it is important for students to: develop a coherent plan for testing an identified variable, understand the importance of experimental controls, and be able to devise metrics to evaluate results.
This unit will also indirectly address the following standard:
4-PS3-2 Make observations to provide evidence that energy can be transferred from place to place by sound, light, heat, and electric currents.
While not an explicit focus of the unit, students will be able to observe how energy, in the form of heat, is able to affect foods through several of the explorations. When dissolving sugar in water, they will initially see how heat causes the temperature of water to rise. Students will also see how heat allows a surprisingly large amount of sugar to be dissolved in water to create a saturated solution. This standard is again alluded to when students experience how heat begins the caramelization process for the preparation of caramel apples.
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