Draft 5.0 ScienceTHIRD GRADE
Classroom Alignment Tool
Optional Curriculum with Oregon’s Common Curriculum Goals, Content Standards, and Eligible Content
PHYSICAL SCIENCE - MATTER
Common Curriculum Goal: Understand structure and properties of matter.Content Standard: Understand structure and properties of matter.
Benchmark Standard: Describe objects according to their physical properties. / Taught? /
Lessons/Units Used
/ Text/Support MaterialsDescribe objects in terms of the material they are made of (clay, cloth, paper, etc.) and their physical properties (color, size, shape, weight, texture, flexibility, etc). AAAS BSL 4D, K-2, #1; Atlas p.33,55,57&61
PHYSICAL SCIENCE - MATTER
Common Curriculum Goal: Understand chemical and physical changes.Content Standard: Describe and analyze chemical and physical changes.
Benchmark Standard: Describe changes that occur in matter. / Taught? /
Lessons/Units Used
/ Text/Support MaterialsDescribe changes of objects and recognize their cause.
PHYSICAL SCIENCE - FORCE
Common Curriculum Goal: Understand fundamental forces, their forms, and their effects on motion.Content Standard: Describe fundamental forces and the motions resulting from them.
Benchmark Standard: Describe an object’s position and how to affect its movement. / Taught? /
Lessons/Units Used
/ Text/Support MaterialsDescribe different ways things move, such as straight, zigzag, round and round, back and forth, and fast and slow. AAAS BSL 4F, K-2, #1; Atlas p.63&65
For more information contact Kathleen Vanderwall at: 503.378.3600, Ext. 2288 or
Key to Symbols: Model grade-level statement @ Eligible content, which may be assessed on state knowledge and skills test
Assessed using state scoring guide. See implementation schedule at:
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Draft 5.0 Science Classroom Alignment ToolTHIRD GRADE
Grade-level Content / Taught? /Lessons/Units Used
/ Text/Support MaterialsRecognize that without touching them, a magnet pulls on all things made of iron and either pushes or pulls on other magnets. AAAS BSL 4G, 3-5, #2
PHYSICAL SCIENCE - ENERGY
Common Curriculum Goal: Understand energy, its transformations, and interactions with matter.Content Standard: Explain and analyze the interaction of energy and matter.
Benchmark Standard: Identify common types and uses of energy. / Taught? /
Lessons/Units Used
/ Text/Support MaterialsRecognize some common forms of energy such heat, light, electricity, magnetic and chemical energy.
Know that things give off light often also give off heat. Heat is produced by mechanical and electrical machines, and any time one thing rubs against something else. AAAS BSL 4E, 3-5, #1
LIFE SCIENCE - ORGANISMS
Common Curriculum Goal: Understand the characteristics, structure, and functions of organisms.Content Standard: Describe the characteristics, structure, and functions of organisms.
Benchmark Standard: Recognize characteristics that are similar and different between organisms. / Taught? /
Lessons/Units Used
/ Text/Support MaterialsUnderstand that stories sometimes give plants and animals attributes they really do not have. AAAS BSL 5A, K-2, #3
Understand that the brain enables human beings to think and sends messages to other body parts to help them work properly. AAAS BSL 6C, K-2, #3; Atlas p.75
Know that the brain gets signals from all parts of the body telling what is going on there. The brain also sends signals to parts of the body to influence what they do. AAAS BSL 6C, 3-5, #4; Atlas p.75
Benchmark Standard: Describe the basic needs of living things. / Taught? /
Lessons/Units Used
/ Text/Support MaterialsKnow that most living things need water, food, and air. AAAS BSL 5C, K-2, #2; Atlas p.73,77&79
LIFE SCIENCE - HEREDITY
Common Curriculum Goal: Understand the transmission of traits in living things.Content Standard: Understand the transmission of traits in living things.
Understand that offspring are very much, but not exactly, like their parents and like one another. AAAS BSL 5B, K-2, #2; Atlas p.69,71&83
Benchmark Standard: Describe how related plants and animals have similar characteristics. / Taught? /
Lessons/Units Used
/ Text/Support MaterialsDiagram and label parts of a life cycle.
LIFE SCIENCE – DIVERSITY/INTERDEPENDENCE
Common Curriculum Goal: Understand the relationships among living things and between living things and their environments.Content Standard: Explain and analyze the interdependence of organisms in their natural environment.
Benchmark Standard: Describe a habitat and the organisms that live there. / Taught? /
Lessons/Units Used
/ Text/Support MaterialsKnow that different organisms need different amounts of water, food, air, waste removal and a particular range of temperatures in their environments. AAAS BSL 6A, K-2, #2; Atlas p.73
Understand that some source of "energy" is needed for all organisms to stay alive and grow. AAAS BSL 5E, 3-5, #2; Atlas p.79
LIFE SCIENCE – DIVERSITY/INTERDEPENDENCE
Common Curriculum Goal: Understand the relationships among living things and between living things and their environments.Content Standard: Describe and analyze diversity of species, natural selection, and adaptations.
Benchmark Standard:
Identify how some animals gather and store food, defend themselves, and find shelter. / Taught? /
Lessons/Units Used
/ Text/Support MaterialsUnderstand that, for any particular environment, some kinds of plants and animals survive well and some survive less well, and some cannot survive at all. AAAS BSL 5D, 3-5, #1; Atlas p.83
Understand some kinds of organisms that once lived on Earth have completely disappeared although they were something like others that are alive today. AAAS BSL 5F, K-2, #2; Atlas p.81
EARTH/SPACE SCIENCE – THE DYNAMIC EARTH
Common Curriculum Goal: Understand the properties and limited availability of the materials, which make up the Earth.Content Standard: Identify the structure of the Earth system and the availability and use of the materials that make up that system.
Benchmark Standard: Recognize physical differences in Earth materials. / Taught? /
Lessons/Units Used
/ Text/Support MaterialsUnderstand that rock is composed of different combinations of minerals.
Know that discarded products contribute to the problem of waste disposal.
Know that air is a substance that surrounds us. AAAS BSL 4B, 3-5, #4; Atlas p.55,57,59&77
EARTH/SPACE SCIENCE – THE DYNAMIC EARTH
Common Curriculum Goal: Understand changes occurring within the lithosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere of the Earth.Content Standard: Explain and analyze changes occurring within the lithosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere of the Earth.
Benchmark Standard:
Identify daily and seasonal weather changes. / Taught? /
Lessons/Units Used
/ Text/Support MaterialsDescribe seasonal weather patterns over a year’s time.
Understand that earthquakes and volcanoes can affect the surface of the Earth.
EARTH/SPACE SCIENCE – THE EARTH IN SPACE
Common Curriculum Goal: Understand the Earth’s place in the solar system and the universe.Content Standard: Explain relationships among the Earth, sun, moon, and the solar system.
Benchmark Standard:
Identify and trace the movement of objects in the sky. / Taught? /
Lessons/Units Used
/ Text/Support MaterialsKnow that things on or near the Earth are pulled toward it by the Earth’s gravity. AAAS BSL 4B, 3-5, #1; Atlas p.43&51
Understand that the moon orbits around the Earth.
EARTH/SPACE SCIENCE – THE UNIVERSE
Common Curriculum Goal: Describe natural objects, events, and processes outside the Earth, both past and present.Recognize there are more stars in the sky than anyone can easily count. AAAS BSL 4A, K-2, #1; Atlas p.45,47&49
Know that stars are not scattered evenly and they are not always the same brightness and color. AAAS BSL 4A, K-2, #1; Atlas p.45,47&49
SCIENTIFIC INQUIRY – FORMING A QUESTION OR HYPOTHESIS
Common Curriculum Goal: Formulate and express scientific questions or hypotheses to be investigated.Content Standard: Make observations. Formulate and express scientific questions or hypotheses to be investigated based on the observations.
Benchmark Standard:
Make observations. Based on these observations, ask questions or form hypotheses, which can be explored through simple investigations. / Taught? /
Lessons/Units Used
/ Text/Support MaterialsMake observations.
Describe and compare things in terms of their number, shape, texture, size, weight, color, and motion. AAAS BSL 12D, K-2, #1; Atlas p.17,19,119&123
Raise questions about the world around the students.
Ask questions that can be explored through simple investigations.
Form hypotheses.
SCIENTIFIC INQUIRY – DESIGNING AN INVESTIGATION
Common Curriculum Goal: Design safe and ethical scientific investigations to address questions or hypotheses.
Content Standard: Design scientific investigations to address and explain questions or hypotheses.
Benchmark Standard:
Plan a simple investigation. / Taught? /
Lessons/Units Used
/ Text/Support MaterialsWrite some sequential steps to help answer a question.
SCIENTIFIC INQUIRY – COLLECTING AND PRESENTING DATA
Common Curriculum Goal: Conduct procedures to collect, organize, and display scientific data.Content Standard: Collect, organize, and display scientific data.
Benchmark Standard:
Collect data from an investigation. / Taught? /
Lessons/Units Used
/ Text/Support MaterialsWrite simple observations.
Collect data.
Record data on provided format.
Transfer data from a table to a provided graph.
Understand that numbers and shapes—and operations on them—help to describe and predict things about the world around us. AAAS BSL 2C, 3-5, #1; Atlas p.27,29,115&117
SCIENTIFIC INQUIRY – ANALYZING AND INTERPRETING RESULTS
Common Curriculum Goal: Analyze scientific information to develop and present conclusions.
Content Standard: Analyze scientific information to develop and present conclusions.
Benchmark Standard:
Use the data collected from an investigation to explain the results. / Taught? /
Lessons/Units Used
/ Text/Support MaterialsUse data from a chart or graph to answer questions.
Summarize data from a chart or graph.
UNIFYING CONCEPTS AND PROCESS
Common Curriculum Goal: Understand that any collection of things that have an influence on one another can be thought of as a system.Recognize and diagram the parts of a system.
UNIFYING CONCEPTS AND PROCESS
Common Curriculum Goal: Understand that a model is a tentative scheme or structure with explanatory power.Compare objects, drawings, and constructions to the real things they represent.
UNIFYING CONCEPTS AND PROCESS
Common Curriculum Goal: Understand that both patterns of change and stability are important in the natural world.Describe examples of change over time.
Know that sometimes changing one thing causes changes in something else. In some situations, changing the same thing in the same way usually has the same result. AAAS BSL 9B, K-2, #2; Atlas p.121&125
Describe how some things change and some things remain the same.
UNIFYING CONCEPTS AND PROCESS
Common Curriculum Goal: Understand that changes in scale influence the characteristics, properties and relationships within a system.Compare the largest and smallest possible size for a variety of objects, (e.g., cars, birds, buildings, flowers).
HISTORY AND NATURE OF SCIENCE
Common Curriculum Goal: Understand that science is a human endeavor practiced by individuals from many different cultures.Identify different types of science carried out by different groups of people (e.g., geologists, oceanographers, biologists, chemists).
Understand that describing things as accurately as possible is important in science because it enables people to compare their observations with those of others. AAAS BSL 1B, 3-5, #3; Atlas p.17,21&23
HISTORY AND NATURE OF SCIENCE
Common Curriculum Goal: Understand that scientific knowledge is subject to change based on new findings and results of scientific observation and experimentation.Identify that scientific explanations may change with new observations.
HISTORY AND NATURE OF SCIENCE
Common Curriculum Goal: Understand that scientific knowledge distinguishes itself through the use of empirical standards, logical arguments, and skepticism.Distinguish between observations and inferences.
Identify inferences based on specific observations.
Ask questions about the world around you. “How do you know?” in appropriate situations and attempt reasonable answers when others ask them the same question. AAAS BSL 12E, 3-5, #1; Atlas p.17
SCIENCE AND SOCIAL PERSPECTIVE
Common Curriculum Goal: Describe the role of science and technology in local, national, and global issues.Know that people, alone or in groups, are always inventing new ways to solve problems and get work done. The tools and ways of doing things that people have invented affect all aspects of life. AAAS BSL 3C, K-2, #1; Atlas p.37
SCIENCE AND SOCIAL PERSPECTIVE
Common Curriculum Goal: Describe how daily choices of individuals, taken together, affect global resource cycles, ecosystems, and natural resource supplies.Understand that people are always inventing new ways to solve problems. Sometimes these solutions may create new problems. AAAS BSL 3C, 3-5, #5; Atlas p.39
Understand that technologies often have drawbacks as well as benefits. A technology that helps some people or organisms may hurt others—either deliberately (as weapons can) or inadvertently (as pesticides can). When harm occurs or seems likely, choices have to be made or new solutions found. AAAS BSL 3C, 3-5, #5; Atlas p.39
Understand that the solution to one problem may create other problems. AAAS BSL 3B, 3-5, #3; Atlas p.39
SCIENCE AND SOCIAL PERSPECTIVE
Common Curriculum Goal: Explain risks and benefits in personal and community health from a science perspective.Give examples in which scientific developments help keep us healthy, (e.g., vaccinations and medicines).
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Common Curriculum Goal: Understand the relationship that exists between science and technology.Describe tools that are used to observe, measure, and make things (e.g., hammer, stopwatch, hand lens, and screwdriver).
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Common Curriculum Goal: Understand the process of technological design to solve problems and meet needs.Design a scientific project with limited time and materials (e.g., paper tower, toothpick bridge).
For more information contact Kathleen Vanderwall at: 503.378.3600, Ext. 2288 or
Key to Symbols: Model grade-level statement @ Eligible content, which may be assessed on state knowledge and skills test
Assessed using state scoring guide. See implementation schedule at:
Page 1