NGSS IN ACTION

NGSS IN ACTIONStudents explore patterns in the Earth’s surface in this case study of English language learners.

BY EMILY MILLER, RITA JANUSZYK, AND OKHEE LEE

Science and Children64

The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)shift what it means to teach and learn science. One

significant change emerges from the central role of

discourse. As the practices are language-intensive and the

performance expectations explain what a student should

be able to do in science, every student must learn the lan-

guage of science while at the same time learning core ideas

and crosscutting concepts. The performance expectations,

like all of the NGSS, are intended for all students—in-

cluding English language learners (ELLs). This article

explores the ELL Earth science vignette in the NGSS case studies in second grade by (1) focusing on the ways

that teaching and learning science can be approached with

ELLs by supporting and fostering collaborative language

of science in the diverse classroom and (2) illustrating an

authentic application of three-dimensional learning with a

unit that is aligned to the NGSS. This article alerts teach-

ers to the rich resources that are the case studies in Ap-

pendix D (NGSS Lead States 2013), which may be used

to reflect on practice and support shifts toward three-di-

mensional learning.

Each team of students had dug small soil pits in the urban marsh, the coniferous hill, and the school yard field. For each site, they recorded data about soil composition and infiltra-tion, and designed, to scale, diagrams of soil profiles. Now,

with their teams, they were making claims, looking for evi-dence to support their claims, and recording their reasoning on large white boards.

One group—Kaleem, Moustafa, and Victor—was work-ing closely together. Kaleem consulted his partners who were sifting through one of the soil samples, looking for clues. “Feel this! Feel this, you guys; this is so sandy. Here feel.” He handed one of the plates of soil to Victor. “Don’t you think that is sandy?” He looked at the open page in his science notebook; the class had previously tested and written about the compositions of the different soils.

Victor and Moustafa were focused on something they had discovered in one of the soils, pine needles. Moustafa, a recent newcomer from Gambia, said, “This is this thing, this is…” He held up the pine needles. Kaleem supplied the word, “pine needle?” Then Kaleem added dramatically, “Oh! Coniferous hill.”

The boys tramped over to the wall-sized diagrams that the class had made of the soil profiles for each location. These diagrams served as models to help the students think about and explain differences in soil. Only one of the soil profiles had pine needles in the model, and that was the coniferous hill. Victor looked at his notes on coniferous hill and stated, “There are small roots three [inches] down. And pine needles one [inch] down.” Victor used the teams’ field notes to rein-force his thinking about the type of soil.

Moustafa pointed to the colors on another adjacent mod-el, “And the soil was dark, dark, dark black, and it looks like black.” Kaleem responded to Moustafa, “What do you mean?” Moustafa said, pointing to the soil and running his finger along the soil profile for the urban marsh, “Here, urban marsh, it is wet soil, dark, dark black.” He looked for the label ‘organic’ on the diagram, found it and without reading, added, “Organic soil.” Mustafa’s specialization was the urban marsh; his group members knew this and nod-ded, appreciatively. They were well on their way to solving the mystery.

The VignetteAcquiring Language and Integrating New Science Knowledge Through the Practice of Developing and Using ModelsThe vignette introduces a second-grade teacher and her

students in an inclusion classroom at a Title I majority/

minority school. The class is exploring soil and how and

why soil looks different in different locations. The driv-

ing question for the science unit is: Is all soil the same ev-

erywhere? Students have already developed a conceptual

map about soil and interviewed their parents about how

soil is different in different countries. After the conversa-Students choose locations to sample soils.

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October 2015 65

tions with families provided enough evidence to support

the claim that soil is different in different countries, the

students wanted to find evidence of soil differences in the

community. Throughout the unit, the teacher, Ms. Lo-

zano, provided scaffolding and support for students to de-

velop models, use scientific language, and collaborate with

one another in teams.

Developing Claims Based on EvidenceThe class examined an aerial map and a topographical

map to choose three locations that may have different soil.

Some of the students were interested in the possibility of

soil being different colors, and they wondered what the

soil would be like under a coniferous tree on a hill. They

wanted to compare this soil with soil in the lowest loca-

tion on the map, an urban marsh under a freeway near the

government-supported housing where most of the stu-

dents live.

Ms. Lozano dug three pits in each location and asked

the students in groups of three and four to record ob-

servations on their clipboards (for outdoor exploration

safety tips, see NSTA Connection). The students col-

lected data about the layers of soil they found: Each

layer’s color, how deep each layer was, and the number

of roots, insects, and other organisms they encountered

in the pit. The students also observed infiltration of the

soil. They were amazed to find water at the bottom of the

pit in the school yard field and lots of insects and worms.

The urban marsh smelled bad and had trash and sand

in the soil. The students who live near the urban marsh

were dismayed to find so much trash in all layers of the

urban marsh and that the coniferous hill had no plants

growing under the tree; only a few worms.

Back in the classroom with containers of soil from the sites,

the students tried to decide together if each soil was com-

posed of sand, silt, or clay. They were separated into expert

groups to develop soil profile models using the evidence they

collected. They found patterns in the models that explained

how soil was the same or different in their neighborhood. For

example, although all of the models showed that organisms

live in the soil, the students observed that each soil supported

different organisms. They also noticed that the urban marsh

had really wet soil and the coniferous hill had dry soil. The

soil on the school yard field had water eight inches down.

Two of the models—the school yard field and the coniferous

hill—were made up of layers of soil with different colors.

As students engaged in the science and engineering

practice of developing models, they used models to rep-

resent what they discovered and to explore the patterns

of the phenomenon at hand. In this case, the models were

used to explore the driving question, “Is the soil in our

neighborhood the same?” The model provided language

support for all students by having students use visuals to

display data, express their developing understanding, and

participate in student-to-student sense-making. For ex-

ample, many of the students gestured toward the model

Focusing on the ELL NGSS Case StudyThis excerpt is from the case study on English language learners, one of the seven case studies in Appendix D: All Standards, All Students of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) (see Internet Resource). The case studies center on the four federally defined accountability groups—economically disadvantaged students, students from major racial and ethnic groups, students with disabilities, and limited English proficient students (the federal term)—and three additional groups: girls, students in alternative education, and gifted and talented students. The case studies demonstrate successful implementation of the NGSS in real classrooms with diverse student groups across science disciplines and grade levels. The case studies can inform teaching, collaboration, study groups, and professional development.

This article focuses on the ELL case study to provide ideas for teaching science to ELLs within a diverse classroom context. The case study describes a six-week unit in a second-grade classroom taught

by the lead author while serving on the NGSS writing team. Teachers will find strategies to engage and support ELLs in three-dimensional science learning. Our hope is that the vignette of classroom teaching becomes a catalyst for conversation and innovation among teachers, and empowers teachers to reflect more powerfully and make better strategic decisions in the science classroom. We intend the case study as the beginning to a longer ongoing discussion about making science more accessible for ELLs and other underserved students.

The ELL case study, like the other case studies, has three main sections: (1) the vignette illustrating what teachers can do to successfully engage ELLs in three-dimensional learning of the NGSS, (2) a brief summary of the research literature on effective classroom strategies for ELLs, and (3) the context for the ELL population with attention to demographics, science achievement, and education policy.


NGSS in Action

Connecting to the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS Lead States 2013):

2-ESS2 Earth Systems www.nextgenscience.org/2ess2-earth-systems

2-PS1 Matter and Its Interactions www.nextgenscience.org/2ps1-matter-interactions

K-2-ETS1 Engineering Design www.nextgenscience.org/k-2ets1-engineering-design

The materials/lessons/activities outlined in this article are just one step toward reaching the performance expectation listed below. Additional supporting materials/lessons/activities will be required.

Performance Expectations Connections to Classroom ActivityStudents:

2-ESS2-1. Compare multiple solutions designed to slow or prevent wind and water from changing the shape of the land.2-PS1-1. Plan and conduct an investigation to describe and classify different kinds of materials by their observable properties.K-2-ETS1-1. Ask questions, make observations, and gather information about a situation people want to change to define a simple problem that can be solved through the development of a new or improved object or tool.

• built models to explain and compare solutions that will slow or prevent wind and rain from changing the soil by adding sand and trash to the soil.

• planned and conducted an investigation of the different kinds of earth material that made up the three different kinds of soil they found near the school.

• asked questions and made observations about the soil in the urban marsh to figure out which design would best prevent the wind and rain from changing the soil.

Science and Engineering Practices

Developing and Using Models

Constructing Explanations and designing Solutions.

Planning and Carrying Out Investigations

• developed three soil profile models and used the models to compare the soils.

• developed claims with evidence about which “mystery soil” was which and how they know.

• planned and conducted an investigation to collect data about the different earth materials that were in the different soils by their school.

Disciplinary Core Ideas

ESS2.A: Earth Materials and Systems• Wind and water can change the shape of the land.ESS2.B: Plate Tectonics and Large-Scale System Interactions• Maps show where things are located. One can map

the shapes and kinds of land and water in any area.PS1.A: Structure and Properties of Matter• Different kinds of matter exist and many of

them can be either solid or liquid, depending on temperature. Matter can be described and classified by its observable properties.

• were able to have multiple experiences with soil and how the wind and rain can change it.

• used a topographical and an aerial map to predict where in their neighborhood they might find different kinds of soil.

• were able to see that soil has different components that make it up: organic materials and sand, silt, and clay.

Crosscutting Concepts

Patterns

Stability and Change

Energy and Matter

• used patterns they saw in the different kinds of soil to think about how soil was the same and different.

• explained how rain and wind can change the soil and develop engineering solutions to slow or prevent the change from continuing.

• were able to explain how soil looks like one thing but is actually made up of many different materials.

October 2015 67

as they spoke, using the pictures and the labels to support

their words. Students were also supported in making com-

parisons among the models because of the distributed ex-

pertise in location and soil type.

Ms. Lozano designed the next lesson to oblige her students

to construct explanations using their soil profile models. She

gave each of the student teams (composed of students with

different levels of expertise) a question to answer: Where did

the soil sample come from? Each team received three plates

of soil: one from the coniferous hill, the school yard field, and

the urban marsh. Ms. Lozano challenged the teams to work

together and develop claims about the specific soil locations.

She also reminded students to wash their hands after

working with the soil. The students found evidence

from the model and their science notes to support

their claims. For example, the team of Victor, Kaleem, and

Moustafa provided the following evidence to support their

claim: “This soil came from the coniferous hill because it

shows there are pine needles at that place and there are pine

needles in the dirt.”

Using Models to Design and Share Solutions

Finally, students were given a culminating modeling task

that, along with the explanations written in notebooks,

served as an informal assessment opportunity for the stu-

dents. This final task would give Ms. Lozano an idea as to

what students were individually understanding about the

interactions between water and land. Ms. Lozano asked

her students to individually draw an engineering solution

that stops the wind and rain from changing the soil. Earlier

in the week, when the students were coming back from the

urban marsh, the students noticed that wind blew trash

into the soil. They also figured out that the urban marsh

soil was so sandy because the rain washed sand into the

soil from the road. In Wisconsin, the roads are covered

with sand in the winter to prevent traffic accidents.

The students first met in threes to discuss the problem.

Then they individually designed creative solutions to stop

the wind and rain from changing the soil and shared their

ideas in their teams. They were able to collaboratively

discuss the solutions because the unit had focused on the

same phenomenon with repeated hands-on, culturally

relevant, and socially meaningful experiences. Kaleem

thought that a great solution would be to place a sign near

the urban marsh that asks people to not throw trash in the

ground or spread sand on the street. Zytasia wanted to dig

pits surrounding the urban marsh to catch the trash and

sand before it flows into the marsh. Moustafa was sure

that building a big house on top of the marsh will keep it

from collecting trash. Pao drew a row of identical women

in triangle-shaped skirts holding umbrellas in a long line

over the marsh.


NGSS in Action

NGSS and Connections to the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for English Language Arts and MathematicsThe three dimensions of the NGSS work together and are

indicated with parentheses when they appear in the vi-

gnette on the web (see Internet Resource). The classroom

instruction builds understanding toward multiple perfor-

mance expectations that are grouped, or “bundled,” in the

unit. The performance expectations met in the vignette

are from physical science, life science, and engineering, in

addition to Earth science.

Online, we share a chart showing performance expecta-

tions from several standards that are addressed in the case

study (see NSTA Connection). When teachers are plan-

ning their instruction, they must bundle the standards

from multiple science disciplines in order to best explain

the phenomenon, and to exemplify how science is now ap-

proached in college and career. The case study concludes

with an architecture summarizing the bundled perfor-

mance expectations from multiple science disciplines. The

architecture features all of the performance expectations

met during the specific vignette. Furthermore, this archi-

tecture brings in the connections from the vignette to the

CCSS for English language arts and mathematics in the

same design as in the NGSS. Teachers who are interested

in teaching integrated lessons across subject areas will find

this feature helpful. In the Earth science unit of the ELL

case study, the vignette shows how integration can not

only be accomplished, but reinforces both content learn-

ing and language acquisition across the NGSS and CCSS

through repeated experiences.

Effective Strategies from Research LiteratureEach case study describes effective strategies for imple-

mentation of the NGSS in the classroom, at school, at

home, and in the community. The NGSS increases expec-

tations that ELLs engage in the language-intensive prac-

tices, and teachers need to support ELLs in collaborative

sense-making about big ideas in science (Lee, Quinn, and

October 2015 69

NGSS in Action

NSTA ConnectionVisit www.nsta.org/SC1510 for safety tips for outdoor exploration and a chart featuring NGSS-style architecture.

Valdés 2013). The research literature for ELLs includes

five domains of strategies that teachers can employ to en-

able ELLs to access science (Fathman and Crowther 2006;

Lee and Buxton 2013; Rosebery and Warren 2008):

• Literacy strategies support student understanding of

the structure of texts, graphs, and scientific genres of

writing.

• Language support strategies include the English for

speakers of other languages (ESOL) strategies to

develop language including structures and vocabulary

needed for the science classroom.

• Discourse strategies include the tools that involve

students in authentic talk and sense-making.

• Home language support and cultural connections

involve the teacher’s effort to value and build on the

intellectual resources that students bring from home

and community.

Each of these strategies is explained more fully in the

case study, and then exemplified in the vignette.

ContextEach case study in NGSS Appendix D provides the con-

text of a specific student group in terms of demographics,

science achievement, and educational policy. The NGSS

were released at a time when ELLs are the fastest grow-

ing population of students and represent 21% of the na-

tion’s students (NCES 2014). While the ELL population

is rising, science achievement remains below proficient ac-

cording to NAEP where only 3% of eighth graders scored

proficient in science (NCES 2013). This is a trend that has

remained relatively stable since 1996 despite increased ac-

commodations for testing. Finally, the policy that address-

es ELLs in the nation’s schools varies by state in terms of

accountability, assessment, and identification, thus mak-

ing it difficult to compare information about ELLs across

states.

Conclusion The ELL case study in Appendix D is unique as part

of the standards documents because it demonstrates a

commitment to accessibility for all students in a teacher

friendly and focused teaching example. It underscores the

NGSS commitment to make sure that STEM becomes a

viable option for all students.

Teachers are doing amazing things every day with stu-

dents in science. This case study, rather than be the final

word on the topic, should provoke teachers to realize that

the everyday teaching they do with ELLs would be com-

pelling for others to read and try out with their own stu-

dents. Notwithstanding, this case study gives insight into

how modeling, as language intensive practice, is also a lan-guage scaffold and an impetus for meaning-making among

ELLs and students who speak English in the home.

The ELL case study describes a real classroom ex-

ample of three-dimensional learning as envisioned by the

NGSS—science and engineering practices, crosscutting

concepts, and disciplinary core ideas—that are connected

to the CCSS for English language arts and mathematics.

The teacher uses effective classroom strategies to provide

access to more rigorous science learning for ELLs. The ef-

fective teaching of science engages ELLs in science and

engineering practices and rich language use through col-

laborative sense-making with other classmates. Equitable

learning opportunities for ELLs are achieved as the NGSS ensure access for all students. ■

Emily Miller ([email protected]) is a teach-

er at Madison Metropolitan School District in Madison,

Wisconsin. Rita Januszyk is a retired teacher in Hinsdale,

Illinois. Okhee Lee is a professor at New York University.

ReferencesFathman, A.K., and D.T. Crowther, eds. 2006. Science for English

language learners: K–12 classroom strategies. Arlington, VA: NSTA Press.

Lee, O., and C. A. Buxton. 2013. Integrating science learning and English language development for English language learners. Theory Into Practice 52 (1): 36–42.

Lee, O., H. Quinn, and G. Valdés. 2013. Science and language for English language learners: Language demands and opportunities in relation to Next Generation Science Standards. Educational Researcher 42 (4): 223–233.

NGSS Lead States. 2013. Next Generation Science Standards: For states, by states. Washington, DC: National Academies Press. www.nextgenscience.org/next-generation-science-standards.

National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). 2014. The condition of education 2011 (NCES 2014-083). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education.

Rosebery, A.S., and B. Warren. 2008. Teaching science to English language learners: Building on students’ strengths. Arlington, VA: NSTA Press.

Internet Resource Appendix D: All Standards, All Students of the NGSS

www.nextgenscience.org/appendix-d-case-studies


NGSS IN ACTION

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