The Amplify Science approach to integration adheres to the letter and spirit of the California Department

of Education’s Preferred Integrated Model, which was developed by a Science Expert Panel that included

K–12 educators and professional scientists. The integrated model allows students to build knowledge across

disciplines in each year so that past learning is connected to new concepts, applied to new phenomena, and

further developed in each year. The design of the Amplify Science Middle School curriculum is grounded in the

following three-dimensional principles:

Amplify Science for grades 6–8: California Integrated Model

• Learning organized around the explanation of real-world phenomena. Many real-world phenomena cross the

domain boundaries of life, physical, or earth and space science (as well as engineering). Each Amplify Science

unit begins with an intriguing real-world phenomenon that poses a problem that needs to be understood and/or

solved. By the end of the unit, students will have analyzed the phenomenon across multiple scientific domains,

possibly designed and tested an engineering solution, and always applied what they have learned and done in

the unit to a different context. This emphasis on phenomena that foster cross-domain connections strengthens

the three-dimensional integration.

• Careful bundling and sequencing of DCIs to support deep understanding. The California Preferred Integrated

Model specifies the performance expectations to be addressed at each grade. In organizing the Amplify

Science Middle School units, we have intentionally bundled and sequenced these ideas within each grade level

to support the development of deep and coherent understanding. We have also created opportunities to revisit

ideas across grade levels when that provides an opportunity to deepen or extend understanding (for example,

while PEs related to cellular respiration are placed at Grade 7 in the Preferred Integrated Model, we expose

students to these ideas twice: once in the context of human body systems, in the 6th Grade Metabolism unit,

and again in the context of ecosystems, in the 7th Grade Matter and Energy in Ecosystems unit.)

• Appropriate focus on Crosscutting Concepts. By their very nature, crosscutting concepts integrate across

the disciplines. When used wisely, a CCC helps students use prior experience with the same CCC to make sense

of the phenomenon they are currently investigating. That experience can also deepen their understanding

of the CCC itself, thereby amplifying the explanatory power of that specific CCC as a conceptual tool when

encountering a new phenomenon.

• Appropriate inclusion and sequencing of Science and Engineering Practices. While each Performance

Expectation cites just one SEP, students must explore that PE’s Disciplinary Core Ideas via multiple SEPs across

multiple lessons. In each unit, students engage, investigate, explain, argue and apply via a carefully designed

bundle of SEPs that lead to deep understanding: engagement in SEPs is authentic to the work of scientists.

By consistently, enjoyably and successfully using multiple SEPs to understand phenomena across multiple

domains, students experience science as a unified, integrated whole.

Harnessing Human Energy unit

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Example of an Integrated Storyline: Grade 8

As described in the California Science Framework, “perhaps the most important perspective with respect

to Integrated Grade Eight is that it serves as a capstone for the middle school grade span.” Students use the

SEPs and CCCs they have experienced in prior middle school years to explore two of the most significant

breakthroughs in the history of science: the physics of forces and motion, and the biology of natural

selection. While these two topics do not readily connect with each other, they each are deepened by their

connections and integration with grade eight Earth and Space science DCIs. Earth’s long geological history

provides the place and time for the evolution of life’s unity and diversity. The beautiful dances within the solar

system are choreographed by Newton’s laws of motion. These integrations within Grade 8 build upon the

learning experiences in the prior grades, and enable students to experience “this grandeur and wonder [that

otherwise] would be unknown to us.”

Lawrence Hall of Science | October 2017

In the first half of their 8th grade year, students develop deep expertise in the physics of force, motion, and

waves. The year begins with an engaging introduction to energy transfer and conversion in the launch unit,

Harnessing Human Energy. This unit presents students with the need to understand how human motion

can be converted into other forms of energy to power the portable devices of rescue workers. In the next

two units, Force and Motion and the Force and Motion Engineering Internship, students learn how to explain

motion through the lens of Newton’s laws. In Force and Motion, the phenomenon students must explain is the

mystery of a failed space station docking; in the Engineering Internship that follows, students apply what they

have learned about force and motion to an engineering challenge, designing supply pods that can be dropped

to provide supplies for disaster victims.

Earth, Moon, and Sun Sim

Light Waves unit

Magnetic Fields unit

3© 2017 The Regents of the University of California

Lawrence Hall of Science | October 2017

Next, in the unit Magnetic Fields, students expand their understanding

of forces to include non-touching forces. Students must analyze

the results of a set of tests of a model magnetic jet launcher. This

unit requires students to bring together ideas about force with ideas

about potential and kinetic energy, in order to explain the behavior of

magnetic systems. Crosscutting concepts such as Energy and Matter,

Cause and Effect and Stability and Change help students to make

these connections. For example, the idea that a system will be stable

until something causes a change, and that a force is an example of

something that can cause a change, helps students to explain both

touching and non-touching forces. Similarly, whenever a system is

changing, students develop the habit of asking themselves where

the energy is coming from to cause that change, a deepening of their

understanding of the crosscutting concept of Energy and Matter.

The Light Waves unit culminates the physics portion of the 8th grade

year and provides an excellent opportunity for students to make

cross-domain connections between physical science, life science and

Earth science. The anchoring phenomenon chosen for this unit—the

surprisingly high rate of skin cancer in Australia—supports students

in deep learning about the physics of electromagnetic waves, but

also requires them to apply and make connections to ideas they

learned in 6th and 7th grade (latitudinal banding of energy from

the Sun; composition of the atmosphere; and the functions of the

nucleus of the cell). This unit thus served as an excellent example of

how real scientists must make linkages across domains in order to

solve problems and explain phenomena. This unit is followed by the

Earth, Moon, and Sun unit, which provides a bridge between a physics

focus and an evolution focus as students zoom out to take a larger

perspective on Earth and its place in the Solar System. Through

an emphasis on the crosscutting concepts of Patterns, Systems and

System Models, and Scale, Proportion and Quantity, students are able

to reflect on how these CCCs are applied in similar and different ways in

Earth and space science, compared to life or physical science.

Natural Selection Engineering Internship

Evolutionary History unitScience article

4© 2017 The Regents of the University of California

Students return to Earth for the last three units in the Grade 8 sequence, to learn about some of the biggest

ideas in life science: natural selection and evolution. In the unit Natural Selection students must explain the

phenomenon of a highly poisonous population of newts discovered in an Oregon park. Students use the

crosscutting concept of Cause and Effect as they consider the causes of changes to distribution of traits in

populations, and reflect on other ways they have considered causes and effects earlier in the year. At this point,

the goal is for students to understand cause and effect so deeply that they begin to automatically approach a

new phenomenon from the perspective of cause and effect. Analyzing the effects of environmental changes

on populations in this unit allows students to make cross-domain connections between life science and Earth

science. Students apply what they’ve learned about natural selection in the Natural Selection Engineering

Internship: Fighting Drug-Resistant Malaria, in which they take on the role of biomedical engineers to design and

test a malaria treatment plan that does not increase drug-resistance in the parasite.

Students expand their time scale even further to look at the history of life on Earth in the final unit of 8th

grade, Evolutionary History. Students play the role of paleontologists who must help a museum determine

whether a mystery fossil is more closely related to whales or wolves. This unit provides an excellent

opportunity for students to deepen and apply their understanding of the crosscutting concepts of Structure

and Function and Stability and Change. Through a connection to the designs they made in the Force and

Motion Engineering Internship, students can discover that Structure and Function applies well in engineering

design, but also in living systems when natural selection has resulted in structures that have properties that

enable them to perform specific functions well. Similarly, a comparison between physical systems and living

systems is supported by the CCC of Stability and Change, as students find this concept useful to explain

both changes in the motion of an object and changes in the body structures of organisms within a species.

Students end 8th grade with a robust understanding of DCIs, CCCs and SEPs that will support them in even

deeper learning in grades 9–12.

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Focal and other emphasized crosscutting concepts across Amplify Science Grade 8

Harnessing Human Energy

Force and Motion

Force and Motion Engineering Internship

Magnetic Fields

Light WavesEarth, Moon, and Sun

Natural Selection

Natural Selection Engineering Internship

Evolutionary History

Energy and Matter

Energy and Matter

Energy and Matter

Energy and Matter

Systems and System Models

Systems and System Models

Systems and System Models

Cause and Effect

Cause and Effect

Cause and Effect

Cause and Effect

Cause and Effect

Cause and Effect

Stability and Change

Stability and Change

Stability and Change

Stability and Change

Structure and Function

Structure and Function

Structure and Function

Patterns Patterns Patterns Patterns

Scale, Proportion and Quantity

Scale, Proportion and Quantity

Scale, Proportion and Quantity

Primary Cross-Domain Connections Across Amplify Science Grade 8

Harnessing Human Energy

Force and Motion

Force and Motion Engineering Internship

Magnetic Fields

Light WavesEarth, Moon, and Sun

Natural Selection

Natural Selection Engineering Internship

Evolutionary History

Physical Physical Physical Physical Physical Physical

Earth and Space

Earth and Space

Earth and Space

Earth and Space

Earth and Space

Earth and Space

Earth and Space

Earth and Space

Life Life Life Life

Engineering Engineering Engineering Engineering

5© 2017 The Regents of the University of California

Lawrence Hall of Science | October 2017