Science

Maple Science Department Team Members:

Tricia Kearns – 6th Grade Science Teacher
Rachel Rayborn – 7th Grade Science Teacher
Robin Dombeck – 8th Grade Science Teacher
Kery Obradovich – Math and Science Specialist/Department Chair
Lauren Braverman - 6th Grade Special Education Teacher
Amy Norris - 7th Grade Special Education Teacher
Valerie Yeager - 8th Grade Special Education Teacher

Department Information:

Maple science teachers utilize a curriculum that is a standards-based, carefully sequenced curriculum. Each academic year includes three units—one in physics, chemistry, and biology. Each year’s content and experiences revisit and build on the learning of previous years. This is called a “spiral” curriculum. This means that in our new curriculum, students learn science content and scientific practices across different units within their own grade level, which are extended as they progress through 6th, 7th, and 8th grades.  This gives students the opportunity to further develop and use their understanding throughout their three-year experiences in middle school science, and transfer their knowledge to high school and the future.

Students practice the skill of writing scientific explanations throughout our middle school science curriculum, including these three essential parts:

  • Claim (a testable answer to the question)
  • Evidence (data used to support the claim)
  • Reasoning (explanations that connect evidence to the claim using scientific principles)

By the end of each grade, students will be able to increasingly:

  • Use evidence to create models to explain or predict phenomena
  • Design investigations
  • Explore solutions to complex questions
  • Gather, analyze, and organize data
  • Draw conclusions, make inferences and communicate their ideas and findings
  • Uncover patterns in the phenomena they experience
  • Integrate technology as a tool in any of these areas