Contact: Tricia Bridges, Ph.D., 601.408.0449 or tbridges@jbhm.com

Science Initiative, grades 4, 5, 7, and 8

JBHM has developed the Science Initiative to provide students with the necessary inquiry-based learning and hands-on activities for mastering the Mississippi Science Curriculum Framework and the benchmarks and competencies for the Mississippi Curriculum Test in Science. This program is designed to first give teachers the content they need to implement an engaging instructional approach.

 Components of the Science Product

• Lesson plans with web links for remediation and enrichment
• 100% aligned with the Mississippi Science Framework
• Experiments and investigations that use easily acquired materials
• Activities that encourage cooperative group work and higher-level thinking
• Connections to reading and math
• Writing for understanding
• Exemplary resources
• Lesson Planning Guide that includes:
  • Connections to Mississippi Science Framework
  • Connections to Benchmarks in other grades and subjects
  • Science Sense, a specially designed section for teachers
  • Bell Ringer Questions and Problems in MCT format
  • Science Mysteries, or “hooks” for each lesson
  • ”Minds On” Science, the exploration of the lesson
  • Reflection in each lesson to relate the lesson back to the Benchmarks
  • Unit assessment questions in MCT format
  • Year long project that relates all benchmarks to a real life problem
  • “Build a Science” Binder for students
  • Job-embedded professional development
  • Year long support

This instructional program uses an inquiry and out-of-the-box approach to teach science to intermediate and middle school students. The lessons are sure to engage students who rarely choose to participate in learning and provide enriching experiences to challenge the brightest students. The Mississippi Science Curriculum Framework provides multiple assessment strands that parallel those of the National Science Education Standards and require that students use knowledge to respond to items ranging in difficulty from a basic understanding to items that require high levels of complex thinking and reasoning.

Teaching strands require students to:

• investigate, compare, and analyze structure and functions of living systems
• compare, classify, and analyze reproduction and heredity of organisms
• explore and determine how the changing environment affects organisms
• relate how populations form and affect ecosystems
• determine adaptations of organisms for survival
• explore the earth’s composition and geological past
• investigate the earth in relation to the solar system and galaxies
• investigate, explore, and analyze the properties of matter
• evaluate and investigate the forces of motion
• investigate and examine energy transfers

Sci-Launch - Students from around Mississippi share their work on Mars and from the ocean depths.

Sample Lesson from 8th Grade Science
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For more information on the Ed Group's Standards-Based Instruction services,
contact your state director.