NGSS gives educators the flexibility to design classroom learning experiences that stimulate students’ interests in science and prepares them for college, careers, and citizenship. Students do not just memorize scientific facts, but in fact learn to think and reason like scientists.

NGSS consists of three dimensions of science learning.  These dimensions are very distinct and equally important to learning science. The three dimensions are combined to form each standard—or performance expectation—and each dimension works with the other two to help students build a cohesive understanding of science over time.

• Crosscutting Concepts help students explore connections across the four domains of science, including Physical Science, Life Science, Earth and Space Science, and Engineering Design.  When these concepts, such as “cause and effect”, are made explicit for students, they can help students develop a coherent and scientifically-based view of the world around them.
  
  
• Science and Engineering Practices describe what scientists do to investigate the natural world and what engineers do to design and build systems. The practices better explain and extend what is meant by “inquiry” in science and the range of cognitive, social, and physical practices that it requires. Students engage in practices to build, deepen, and apply their knowledge of core ideas and crosscutting concepts.
  
  
• Disciplinary Core Ideas (DCIs) are the key ideas in science that have broad importance within or across multiple science or engineering disciplines. As students progress through grade levels, these core ideas build on each other and are grouped into the following four domains: Physical Science, Life Science, Earth and Space Science, and Engineering.

Engineering practices are also a key component of the adopted science standards.  Connections between science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) are integral to transforming the world around us and the career options for our students. Educators must help our students see these connections with the hands-on and real-life connections.  As educators, our job is to make these processes come alive for our large and diverse student population. We do this by giving students a complete, accurate and working understanding of the nature of science, including: the presentation of arguments, modeling, and learning from investigations. This phenomenon-based approach to learning is integral in understanding concepts around science and problem solving.  Put more simply, from kindergarten to high school, CSD provides a standards-based curriculum that treats science not as series of facts to be learned, but as a method of investigating and understanding the world. Doing science, not just talking about science, is key to understanding science. 

NGSS Science and Engineering Practices (SEPs) are:

• Asking Questions and Defining Problems
• Developing and Using Models
• Planning and Carrying Out Investigations
• Analyzing and Interpreting Data
• Using Mathematics and Computational Thinking
• Constructing Explanations and Designing Solutions
• Engaging in Argument from Evidence
• Obtaining, Evaluating, and Communicating Information

NGSS Crosscutting Concepts (CCCs) are:

• Patterns - Observed patterns in nature guide organization and classification and prompt questions about relationships and causes underlying them.
• Cause and Effect: Mechanism and Prediction - Events have causes, sometimes simple, sometimes multi-faceted. Deciphering causal relationships, and the mechanisms by which they are mediated, is a major activity of science and engineering.
• Scale, Proportion, and Quantity - In considering phenomena it is critical to recognize what is relevant at different size, time, and energy scales and the proportional relationships between different quantities as scales change.
• Systems and System Models - A system is an organized group of related objects of components; models can be used for understanding and predicting the behavior of systems.
• Energy and Matter:  Flows, Cycles, and Conservation - Tracking energy and matter flows into, out of, and within systems help one understand the system’s behavior.
• Structure and Function - The way an object is shaped or structured determines many of its properties and functions.
• Stability and Change - For both designed and natural systems, conditions that affect stability and factors that control rates of change are critical elements to consider and understand.

For more information about NGSS from the Delaware Department of Education site, please visit: https://www.doe.k12.de.us/Page/2524

For additional in-depth information regarding the Next Generation Science Standards, please visit:
https://www.nextgenscience.org/parents