Science Committee Minutes 1/12/09

SCIENCE COMMITTEE MINUTES
1/12/09
submitted by
Shelly Simpson, chair

The meeting began with a discussion of the MLR , specifically the Engineering standard. The MS staff discussed how this standard was indeed addressed in grade 8. We discussed where to go next and set goals for each grade level, 6-8. They are as follows: ~Grade 6 will concentrate on revamping their Space Exploration unit and adding the Hydrosphere unit as well. They will continue to work toward common assessments, which will be given throughout the units. They are also working with curriculum mapping.
~ Grade 7 is creating a new discrete Plant Unit, as well as working on the curriculum mapping for each unit . They are also looking carefully to increase their expectations of the students.
~ Grade 8 is diligently completing the Curriculum Mapping as well as adjusting student rubrics. They are also recreating data of their lessons and labs, since they were lost during the computer upgrades.

Grades K-5 have all of their units in place. Presently , they are writing common assessments, which will correlate with the units. There will be release time this year in hopes of completing the assessments. The common assessments are as follows:
~ K- All set
~1- Balance and Motion is complete, Organisms is pending and Weather is still in need of an assessment.
~2- All three units have assessments ( two were approved today by the committee)
~3- All three are in need of completion. To date, habitat is almost to completion.
~4- All three assessments are needed
~5- Floating and Sinking is completed, Microworlds is almost to completion and Biomes is still in need of an assessment.

This will be our last Science Meeting as a whole committee for the school year. We will work in sub groups to complete the remaining tasks.
No one from the HIgh School attended this meeting.