8th Grade Science/CAPE

[Anonymous]

My 8th grader (as all 8th grade students) is getting ready to take the Science CAPE assessment. All year long, their teacher’s communication regarding the science curriculum details has been either broad outline (titles), to inconsistent, to inexistent. And with no sharing of comprehensive resources for review.
I am curious and want to crowdsource the folks here to understand your experiences and how is a typical 8th-grade science curriculum being implemented at your schools for comparative insights. Thank you.

[Anonymous]

The 8th grade science assessment contains content from 6th, 7th, and 8th grades. The emphasis is on interpreting data and analyzing information. Most of the test is multiple choice, fill in the blank, and writing. There is no way to prepare for the science content. Students can use skills that they've learned in ELA and Math to interpret passages and graphs.

8th grade DCPS Science Teacher

[Anonymous]

BASIS and Latin Cooper have the highest CAPE science scores.

Latin's middle school science curriculum:

5th and 6th: General science
7th: Life Science
8th: Earth Science

BASIS middle school science curriculum:

5th, 6th, 7th and 8th: Biology, Chemisty and Physics (taught every year, spiraling up)

5th: Physical geography, which incorporates Earth Sciences with geography.

[Anonymous]

Copying this from another thread:

Here are some of the CAPE science results for middle schools last year:

percent proficient:

BASIS: 64%
Latin, Anna Cooper: 54%
Latin, original: 38%
Deal: 35%
ITDS: 24%
Hardy: 21%
Francis: 10 %
EH:7%
SH: 6%

[Anonymous]

DCPS is switching over to using the Amplify science curriculum. This year 6th graders used it and it will continue to expand to the other grade levels. This doesn’t help current 8th graders, but if a DCPS school isn’t using the curriculum at the 6th grade level, I would say something about it and ask why not.

[Anonymous]

Cooper didn’t have an 8th grade last year, so those scores are just it’s 5th grade.

[Anonymous]

“its”, sorry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DCPS is switching over to using the Amplify science curriculum. This year 6th graders used it and it will continue to expand to the other grade levels. This doesn’t help current 8th graders, but if a DCPS school isn’t using the curriculum at the 6th grade level, I would say something about it and ask why not.

Have you looked at the Amplify “curriculum”? It’s truly, truly terrible. I’ve considered quitting over it. There are blatant mistakes, a total lack of differentiation up and down, and it is really poorly ordered. The definition of power is wrong. The human body unit skips the brain! Human body cells are shown as rectangular. DNA isn’t taught in Genetics. Gizmos is 1000% better than Amplify. Expect scores to go down if Amplify is being used, not up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DCPS is switching over to using the Amplify science curriculum. This year 6th graders used it and it will continue to expand to the other grade levels. This doesn’t help current 8th graders, but if a DCPS school isn’t using the curriculum at the 6th grade level, I would say something about it and ask why not.

Have you looked at the Amplify “curriculum”? It’s truly, truly terrible. I’ve considered quitting over it. There are blatant mistakes, a total lack of differentiation up and down, and it is really poorly ordered. The definition of power is wrong. The human body unit skips the brain! Human body cells are shown as rectangular. DNA isn’t taught in Genetics. Gizmos is 1000% better than Amplify. Expect scores to go down if Amplify is being used, not up.

This is really frightening. Science is very important and we can't have 3 lost years, and possibly detrimental years, if they are teaching the foundations incorrectly. Very hard to reteach once it's etched into the brain. What can parents do to help?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DCPS is switching over to using the Amplify science curriculum. This year 6th graders used it and it will continue to expand to the other grade levels. This doesn’t help current 8th graders, but if a DCPS school isn’t using the curriculum at the 6th grade level, I would say something about it and ask why not.

Have you looked at the Amplify “curriculum”? It’s truly, truly terrible. I’ve considered quitting over it. There are blatant mistakes, a total lack of differentiation up and down, and it is really poorly ordered. The definition of power is wrong. The human body unit skips the brain! Human body cells are shown as rectangular. DNA isn’t taught in Genetics. Gizmos is 1000% better than Amplify. Expect scores to go down if Amplify is being used, not up.

This is really frightening. Science is very important and we can't have 3 lost years, and possibly detrimental years, if they are teaching the foundations incorrectly. Very hard to reteach once it's etched into the brain. What can parents do to help?

Write to the Chancellor with concerns.

[Anonymous]

The science teacher does not communicate much about what the kids are doing in class or the curriculum in our DCPS school. As a parent, I do not have access to the curriculum- No material distributed (no pdf nor prints). Add to it, with the abundance of science agencies in DC and opportunities for partnerships with schools and for kids to be involved, there are hardly any such opportunities with our school, not even a science-related field trip and/or exposure for kids.
How are your experiences with middle school science? And beyond DC STEM Fair, I am curious about what additional science-related opportunities that are available for middle schools students?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DCPS is switching over to using the Amplify science curriculum. This year 6th graders used it and it will continue to expand to the other grade levels. This doesn’t help current 8th graders, but if a DCPS school isn’t using the curriculum at the 6th grade level, I would say something about it and ask why not.

Have you looked at the Amplify “curriculum”? It’s truly, truly terrible. I’ve considered quitting over it. There are blatant mistakes, a total lack of differentiation up and down, and it is really poorly ordered. The definition of power is wrong. The human body unit skips the brain! Human body cells are shown as rectangular. DNA isn’t taught in Genetics. Gizmos is 1000% better than Amplify. Expect scores to go down if Amplify is being used, not up.

This is really frightening. Science is very important and we can't have 3 lost years, and possibly detrimental years, if they are teaching the foundations incorrectly. Very hard to reteach once it's etched into the brain. What can parents do to help?

If you truly think science is important please write to OSSE because they are proposing a change to graduation requirements where you only need three years of science. This district really has the lowest expectations for students.

[Anonymous]

DCPS MS Science teacher here. Amplify is terrible. Tons of additional testing. So much screen time, much of it in place of labs and hands-on demos. Kids hate it. DCPS has presented no data supporting it other than "some magazines said it was the best." I'm hoping that when it rolls into 8th grade next year, more people will start talking about it. Parents need to be calling principals and instructional superintendents. No one listens to teachers.

FWIW, several charter schools use it too. Science isn't as valued citywide as ELA and Math are - otherwise, there would be uproar.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DCPS MS Science teacher here. Amplify is terrible. Tons of additional testing. So much screen time, much of it in place of labs and hands-on demos. Kids hate it. DCPS has presented no data supporting it other than "some magazines said it was the best." I'm hoping that when it rolls into 8th grade next year, more people will start talking about it. Parents need to be calling principals and instructional superintendents. No one listens to teachers.

FWIW, several charter schools use it too. Science isn't as valued citywide as ELA and Math are - otherwise, there would be uproar.

This feels like the most important and alarming thing ive ever read on this site! As a middle school parent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The science teacher does not communicate much about what the kids are doing in class or the curriculum in our DCPS school. As a parent, I do not have access to the curriculum- No material distributed (no pdf nor prints). Add to it, with the abundance of science agencies in DC and opportunities for partnerships with schools and for kids to be involved, there are hardly any such opportunities with our school, not even a science-related field trip and/or exposure for kids.
How are your experiences with middle school science? And beyond DC STEM Fair, I am curious about what additional science-related opportunities that are available for middle schools students?

There are also some STEM CTE classes. Design and Modeling, Robotics and others. In MS, some CTE is done through Project Lead the Way (PLTW). There are also clubs like the Technology Student Association (TSA) at some schools.