Engages all students in hands-on science.
The collaborative multimodal approach of FOSS uses age-appropriate and relevant phenomena that can be found in local contexts, enabling all students to access the learning experience. The instructional design engages students in hands-on experiences before they read about them, ensuring that students of all backgrounds and abilities can experience success. FOSS sparks curiosity, provokes authentic conversation, and empowers all students to engage in three-dimensional scientific thinking.
English Language Arts Connections
FOSS connects science to English through readings, Science Notebook writings, and teacher support for ELLs. FOSS is intentionally designed to promote connections between science and language arts and to help build critical literacy skills.
Speaking and Listening
FOSS immerses students in a culture of exchanging ideas as they process and organize their own learning, apply their knowledge, and solve problems in collaborative groups.
Vocabulary Building
Students engage with scientific concepts through their senses during their active investigations. When they connect those experiences with the relevant vocabulary words, it gives the words context and meaning.
Group Discussions
FOSS give students regular, structured opportunities to talk in pairs and small groups, contributing accurate and relevant facts to support their sense-making discussions.
Science Notebooks
Students use their science notebooks to keep an organized record of observations, questions, and conceptual understanding, building their ELA skills in the course of their work as scientists.
Science Resources Readings
Readings in FOSS are designed to complement and enhance active investigations. Students pose questions, support their ideas with evidence, acquire information from text and other sources, and interpret illustrations to build understanding of science concepts.
Making Sense of Phenomena
FOSS incorporates local and relevant phenomena in a way that addresses standards and instills science literacy that will serve students and their communities well for a lifetime.
Storylines
FOSS is built around phenomena that students can observe firsthand and relate to the world they know. Phenomena are organized into coherent storylines for the teacher, empowering them to engage students as they explore.
Student Empowerment
FOSS give students regular, structured opportunities to talk in pairs and small groups, contributing accurate and relevant facts to support their sense-making discussions.
Benefits of Local and Relevant Phenomena
- Leverages students’ prior knowledge
- Offers direct access and connection to their world
- Levels the playing field for all students
- Allows student-generated questioning and experimentation
- Ensures developmentally appropriate phenomena
Environmental Literacy
FOSS throws open the classroom door and takes students outdoors, raising their awareness of the natural world.
Environmental Awareness
FOSS raises students’ awareness that the natural world is more than just the place between manmade buildings, but rather an interdependent host of natural systems on which all life depends.
Connection with Surroundings
FOSS connects students to a sense of place — their schoolyard, their community, their state, and even federal national parks.
Understanding of Natural Systems
FOSS helps support students to better understand natural systems.
Preparation for Action
FOSS encourages students to understand and create solutions to improve their communities.
Assessment
Standards-aligned assessment that encourages a growth mindset.
The FOSS Assessment system is based on research by the developers during the NSF-supported Assessing Science Knowledge (ASK) project. The system supports a growth mindset to help students meet the goals described in the NGSS performance expectations.
Embedded Assessment
Continuous monitoring of student thinking helps teachers know when more instruction is needed. Formative assessments are based on authentic student work, including science notebook entries and response sheets.
Performance Assessment
Teachers track students’ progress on science and engineering practices and crosscutting concepts by observing students’ interactions as they investigate.
Benchmark Assessment
Benchmark assessments for grades 1–5 are designed to look at student progress across the module. Summative assessments for grades 3–5 include a Pretest (Survey), I-Checks after every 1-2 investigations, and a Posttest.
Interim Assessment
Interim assessment tasks for grades 3-5 are designed specifically around NGSS performance expectations to expose students to new ways of integrating and applying the three dimensions of learning to solve problems.
Online Assessment
FOSSmap online assessment data drives teaching and learning.
FOSSmap takes assessments for grades 3-8 online and generates a number of diagnostic and summary reports for quick and easy use in the classroom. The FOSSmap platform provides streamlined student management, an updated interface, and new reporting capabilities.
Instructional Support
Empowering educators like no other science curriculum.
FOSS provides the appropriate instructional support to implement phenomena-based instruction.
Helps teachers connect with students
FOSS Pathways modules present scientific concepts cohesively. Phenomenon storylines are provided for the teacher. The Investigations Guide gives direction to ask probing questions and deepens students’ understanding as they progress through the module.
Presents concepts in a coherent progression
In every module, core ideas build upon each other in a logical sequence. Teacher support in the Investigations Guides and videos explicitly connects the anchor phenomenon being investigated and the core ideas being discovered. This background information helps teachers understand how students develop ideas related to the phenomenon driving the investigation.
Affords flexibility in science instruction
FOSS Pathways provides opportunities to customize instruction to meet local educational goals. Educators can customize the provided instructional resources to create learning experiences that make science relevant to their students’ lives. Pathways provides Side Trip opportunities as optional activities that can be used with the whole class or as student choice activities.
FOSSweb on ThinkLink™
ThinkLink is your portal for FOSS digital learning resources. Experience online activities and digital resources listed by investigations — all in one easy-to-access location.
Tools for Teachers:
- Teacher preparation videos
- Teaching slides
- Printable masters in both English and Spanish
- Teacher Resources chapters
- ELA and Math connections
- Notebook, assessment, and teaching masters
- Materials management support
- Professional Learning support
- FOSSmap for grades 3–8. which lets you assign, code, and analyze students’ performance on benchmark assessments
Tools for Students:
- Online activities for differentiating instruction
- Media library for students
- Interactions with simulations and virtual
investigations for students - FOSS Science Resource student eBook (English,
Spanish, and audio versions)
Test drive FOSSweb on ThinkLink
Experience online activities and digital resources listed by investigations — all in one easy-to-access location.