Appendix on Implementing District Standards
PA Core Standards for Mathematics includes practice standards that grow in complexity as students’ progress in their education. The practices reflect what skills students should develop within the scope the course’s content. This unit will focus on five of the practice standards. All standards are available through the PA Core Standards for Mathematics website.
CC.2.3.HS.A.4 Using various methods, write formal proofs and/or use logic statements to construct or validate arguments.
CC.2.3.HS.A.8 Use and/or develop procedures to determine, describe, or estimate measures of perimeter, circumference, area, surface area, and/or volume.
CC.2.3.HS.A.9 Describe how a change in the linear dimension can affect perimeter, circumference, area, surface area, and/or volume.
CC.2.3.HS.A.11 Use coordinate geometry to establish properties of two dimensional shapes.
CC.2.3.HS.A.14 Apply geometric concepts in modeling situations.
Standards for Mathematical Practice (MP) includes eight practice standards that grow in complexity as students’ progress in their education. The practices reflect what skills students should develop within the scope the course’s content. This unit will focus on three of the eight practice standards. All standards are available through the Common Core website.
1. MP1: Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.
Mathematically proficient students start by explaining to themselves the meaning of a problem and looking for entry points to its solution. They analyze givens, constraints, relationships, and goals. They make conjectures about the form and meaning of the solution and plan a solution pathway rather than simply jumping into a solution attempt.
2. MP3: Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.
Mathematically proficient students understand and use stated assumptions, definitions, and previously established results in constructing arguments. They make conjectures and build a logical progression of statements to explore the truth of their conjectures. They justify their conclusions, communicate them to others, and respond to the arguments of others.
3. MP4: Model with mathematics.
Mathematically proficient students can apply the mathematics they know to solve problems arising in everyday life, society, and the workplace. A student might use geometry to solve a design problem or use a function to describe how one quantity of interest depends on another. They are able to identify important quantities in a practical situation and map their relationships using such tools as diagrams, two-way tables, graphs, flowcharts and formulas.
Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) includes eight science and engineering practice standards that grow in complexity as students’ progress in their in education. The practices reflect what skills students should develop within the scope the course’s content. This unit will focus on three of the eight practice standards. All standards are available through the NGSS website.
1. Practice 1: Asking Questions and Defining Problems
The standards state that by grades 9-12 students are able to ask questions and define problems in 9–12 that builds on K–8 experiences and progresses to formulating, refining, and evaluating empirically testable questions and design problems using models and simulations.
In this unit, students are asked to observe a global problem, air pollution and health, and are expected to seek additional informational from their observations. Furthermore, they are encouraged to interpret data, challenge available information in order to deepen their own understanding.
2. Practice 7: Engaging in argument from evidence
Practice 7 in 9–12 builds on K–8 experiences and progresses to using appropriate and sufficient evidence and scientific reasoning to defend and critique claims and explanations about the natural and designed world(s).
Arguments may also come from current scientific or historical episodes in science.
In reading and comparing the available literature on e-cigarette use and its relation to respiratory health students will compare and evaluate arguments for or against the use of electronic cigarette for tobacco cessation. In addition, students will evaluate claims, evidence, reasoning from multiple sources while practicing critical reading strategies. During the class discussions and debate they must be able to construct a defense statement for their arguments and provide support for their claims from non-fiction sources.
3. Practice 8: Obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information
Practice 8 in 9–12 builds on K–8 experiences and progresses to evaluating the validity and reliability of the claims, methods, and designs.
Similar to Practice 7, this unit allows students the opportunity to critically read scientific literature to determine central ideas and to summarize complex ideas from technical text. Through scaffolding, students will be able to compare multiple sources regarding respiratory health and air pollution and credit the validity of the source by examining the accuracy of the claims in the articles and or videos. The final project allows students to communicate their understanding and level of knowledge regarding the scientific information they have gathered.
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