Third Grade Science Units
Dear Third Grade Families;
Welcome to the Ann Arbor Public Schools Family Pages. We hope the information you find here assists you in supporting your child while s/he is learning important skills and concepts throughout the Third grade year.
The Ann Arbor Public Schools uses Science Companion as its core elementary science learning resource. Science Companion is an inquiry-based program that engages students in hands-on science and the process skills used by scientists. The units of study are aligned with Michigan Science Standards that include a life science and an earth science module at each grade level. Project Lead the Way - Launch resources are used to provide units of study in physical science as well as engineering.
Key Science Learnings
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Life Science
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Habitats
All organisms have basic survival needs: air, food, water, protection, and space. A habitat is the place where an organism gets everything it needs to survive.
- Many organisms share an environment and interact because their habitats overlap.
- Organisms have characteristics that make it possible for them to survive in their habitat.
- A biome is a large geographic area that contains many habitats.
- You can use what you know about a habitat and a biome to design imaginary organisms that might be able to survive in them.
- It’s useful to have criteria when designing a project
Skill Building Activities
- Paying attention to a book’s organization can assist reading comprehension.
- Scientists use models to represent things that are too big, small, fast, slow, far away, or dangerous to observe in the real world.
- You can use a field guide to learn about and identify things in the natural world.
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Earth Science
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Solar System
- Science consists of the actions you take and the tools you use to wonder, think, try, observe, record, discover, and wonder anew.
The Sun’s Daily Pattern
• The sun appears to travel through the sky in a predictable daily pattern.
• The sun’s daily pattern can be explained by the rotation of Earth.
The Sun’s Annual Pattern
- The apparent path of the sun across the sky changes slowly over a year.
- The length of daylight slowly changes over the year.
- The sun’s annual pattern is the result of Earth orbiting the sun once a year.
Our Moon’s Cycle
- Like the sun, the moon appears to move across the sky daily. Sometimes you can see the moon during the day.
- The observable shape of the moon changes from day to day. The moon’s cycle takes about a month.
- Wondering about the world leads to scientific investigations and research.
- The observable shape of the moon changes from day to day in a predictable pattern. The moon’s cycle takes about a month.
- The moon’s shape seems to change from day to day because we see different views of the moon’s sun-lit portion as the moon orbits around Earth. The moon’s cycle takes about a month, the time it takes for the moon to orbit Earth.
Stars and Planets
- The sun is a star like all other stars.
- The sun is the center of our solar system, and Earth is one of eight planets that orbit it.
- Like the sun appears to move across a daytime sky, the stars appear to move across the nighttime sky because Earth rotates on its axis.
- Eight planets orbit around our sun.
- Each planet has unique characteristics that distinguish it from other planets.
- Vast distances exist between the planets.
Skill Building Activities
- Scientists use models to represent things that are too big, small, fast, slow, far away, or dangerous to observe in the real world.
- Scale models represent real objects but are different sizes than the actual objects. Scientists make scale models to help them look at something that is hard to study otherwise.
- Line graphs are charts that measure how data changes over a period of time.
- Elapsed time can be calculated by adding the number of hours and minutes that have passed between a beginning and ending time.
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Physical Science
Engineering and Design
*Unless noted units are Project Lead The Way -Launch resources
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Stability & Motion: Forces & Interactions
Students
- explore simple machines such as wheel and axles, levers, the inclined plane
- investigate the effects of balanced and unbalanced forces on the motion of an object.
- explore magnetic interactions between two objects not in contact with each other through a hands-on project
- apply their knowledge of mechanisms and magnetic interactions as part of a solution to a design problem.
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Programming Patterns
Students
- move beyond basic sequential computer programs to discover the power of modularity and abstraction
- learn how to think computationally about a problem, starting with computer-free activities and progressing to programming in a blocks-based language on a tablet.
- gain appreciation for the powerful computing practice of reducing programmatic solutions so they are generic enough to be reused in a variety of specific circumstances
- create a final program using modular functions and branching logic building on this transformational way of thinking.
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