Supplemental Curricula and Science and Engineering Practices in the Next Generation Science Standards: Developing a Tool for Identification and Alignment

It has been nearly twenty years since the last national science standards, the American Association for the Advancement of Science's (AAAS) Benchmarks for Science Literacy (Benchmarks) (AAAS, 1993) and the National Resource Council's National Science Education Standards (NSES) (NRC, 1996) were published. In 2013, the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), developed using the latest research in science and science teaching, were released. Unlike previous standards, the NGSS are divided into three dimensions, (a) disciplinary core ideas (DCIs), which is the content, (b) crosscutting concepts (CCCs), which are the connections between science subjects, and (c) scientific and engineering practices (SEPs), the processes used in doing science. In the year since their publication, educators are still learning about the standards and how to best implement them in the classroom. Their implementation could be manifested as adapting existing curriculum, developing new curriculum entirely, or adopting newly-released packaged curriculum. Due to the NGSS's recent release packaged curricula will not be available for some time. This project developed a rubric to help educators identify SEPs in existing supplemental curricula. This rubric was tested using the Expedition: Yellowstone! (EY) supplemental curriculum