Knowledge and Skills Statement
Research
Trundle, Kathy Cabe, Katherine N. Mollahan, and Mandy McCormick Smith. 2013. “Plants, Alike and Different.” Science and Children: Early Children Life Science 50, no. 6 (February 2013): 52–57. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43176365. Accessed November 17, 2022.
Summary: Students' curiosity about the natural world can be used to help guide life science instruction. "Plants, Alike and Different" explains that early elementary students should understand that parent plants look similar to their offspring. Teachers can use the Play, Discuss, Explore learning cycle to teach this concept in Kindergarten. Play is important because it allows students to practice different types of plants and generate questions. Students should observe different types of the same plant and look for similarities and differences. These observations can be recorded in the form of drawings. As a class with teacher guidance, these drawings can be used to create data charts where students can easily see the results.
Research
National Research Council. 2012. A Framework for K-12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas. Washington: National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/13165.
Summary: Early elementary school students are expected to understand that all organisms have external parts, and each has specific functions that contribute to the health and survival of the organism. This article explains how the structures of an organism facilitate life functions such as growth and reproduction. This is built from the cell level up to the formation of systems that perform the essential functions to sustain life.