NGSS Storylines

Editor's Note: We're excited to feature a series of video blog posts filmed at HHMI. Below is the first installment of this series. 

In an effort to make the fundamental shift to three-dimensional learning, Jason Crean began a working group that would create coherent storyline units around engaging, real world phenomena. Starting with teachers from five Chicago-area school districts, the group quickly grew, involving teachers from more than 100 schools who came together monthly to collaborate. The goal was to create coherent, phenomenon-driven units that would incorporate multiple performance expectations across the four Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) Life Science Standards.

Integrating HHMI BioInteractive resources was paramount in these storylines as their activities make effective use of real world phenomena that both engage students and provide strong, impactful contexts. Three-dimensional learning integrates the disciplinary core ideas, the science practices, and the crosscutting concepts as prescribed by the NGSS. In order to better bring these different concepts together, storylines that build coherence by allowing students to make meaningful connections between traditionally isolated ideas have been created so that students can make sense of how the natural world works. For example, storylines have been written to include the phenomenon of elephant tusklessness, allowing students to not only see how this trait occurs genetically but also how elephants serve as a keystone species — and how humans have acted as the selective pressure on elephant populations through poaching.

Find our storylines at https://ilscience.org/Storyline.