Center for Educational Excellence & Equity

Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) Circles Institute

A monthly inquiry into making meaning and generating curriculum for teaching and learning for Science in middle schools throughout Ventura County. 30 middle school teachers from Ventura Unified School District and Conejo Valley Unified School District participated in the Circles Institute.

This project was funded by the AMGEN Foundation, led by California Lutheran University, and coordinated by Principal Investigator Professor Michael McCambridge (Cal Lutheran Graduate School of Education), Bret Klopfensein and Rita Armstrong.

2018 Institute Curriculum

What follows are lesson plans created, developed, or discovered over six weeks of trainings.

Teachers will be implementing these lesson plans and providing feedback updates as they work with their students. This work represents our second curricular response to NGSS.

Please enjoy the opportunity to use these resources as generated by classroom teachers interested in engaging their students in scientific exploration through a NGSS-aligned science curriculum.

2018 Projects

Energy and Human Impact (6th Grade Dicipline Specific)

Ecosystems (7th Grade)

Dynamic Forces of Lithosphere (7th Grade Integrated)

Synthetic Materials and They're Impact (7th Grade Integrated)

Patterns of Interactions in Ecosystems (7th Grade)

Gravitational Forces (8th Grade)

Energy of Motion (8th Grade)

Earth's History (8th Grade Integrated)

2017 Institute Curriculum

2016 Institute Curriculum

This project was funded by the AMGEN Foundation, led by California Lutheran University, and coordinated by Principal Investigator Dr. Michael McCambridge (Cal Lutheran Graduate School of Education), Darcy Perez Duffy, and Kristi Hronek.

What follows are lesson plans created, developed, or discovered over nine months of monthly trainings and an intense week in June 2016 of collaboration and creation.

Teachers will be implementing these lesson plans and providing feedback updates as they work with their students. This work represents our first curricular response to NGSS.

Please enjoy the opportunity to use these resources as generated by classroom teachers interested in engaging their students in scientific exploration through a NGSS-aligned science curriculum.

Download Summer 2016 Institute Curriculum PDF

A brief note about fair use and copyright laws (PDF)