Iowa Core Curriculum

Grade 3

Earth/space Sciences

Content Standard 3: Students can understand concepts and relationships in Earth/space sciences.
	Benchmark : Students can understand ideas about Earth's composition and structure.
		Grade Level Indicator : Describe and understand Earth's composition and structure
	Benchmark : Students can understand changes in and around Earth.
		Grade Level Indicator : Identify and explain changes in and around Earth
	Benchmark : Students can understand concepts relating to the universe.
		Grade Level Indicator : Understand concepts and relationships of the universe

The previous benchmarks are pasted in from the Iowa Core Curriculum website. This reminded me of the Private Universe video that I have seen twice now. First of all I find these standards very vague. This can be positive and negative. I like it because I can interpret them how I want to and be able to teach kids about Earth and space in a way that I see best (assuming I'm not told to follow a textbook to a T). I am surprised at how (based on the video) young the grade level is to be learning about seasons and phases of the moon, which I assume it's touching on when it says "identify and explain changes in and around the Earth."

So the question I'm supposed to answer is how would I make my instruction effective in my classroom if I have to teach the ICC on Earth and space sciences. To me I feel my students should know how the moon and sun rotate around the Earth. How this effects the seasons and lunar phases, and how a lunar eclipse works. Also I would like them to have a general idea of the planets in our solar system and their properties. For my students to learn this effectively it makes sense to me that they have visual representations of how our solar system works. That is the best part about our solar system is that each planet is so unique in look and how it goes around the sun and rotates and moons that there is so many objects you can use to make visual representations and incorporate them into a lesson. These can range from the contraption used in the video with the sun, moon, and earth that you pull a handle and the chain makes all of them rotate simultaneously--to a bunch of different shaped playground balls and a lamp. I would hope that with the proper amount of time spent on this that these visual representations would give kids a great idea of how it all works and that they would pass the benchmarks for 3rd grade Earth/space sciences.