Department Overview

"Science is not just a body of knowledge that reflects current understanding of the world; it is also a set of practices used to establish, extend, and refine that knowledge." (NRC 2012)

The K-8 curriculum is an inquiry-based program providing concrete experiences where students investigate scientific phenomena firsthand. These experiences serve as a foundation for more advanced ideas that prepare them for life and increasingly complex content. The curriculum is aligned to the PA Science and Technology Standards and the Science PSSA eligible content.

While inquiry continues to be an integral part of our high school science curriculum the content becomes increasingly more complex. The goal of the department is to produce science-literate students who are college and career-ready. "Science literacy requires understanding habits of mind that enable citizens to grasp what scientific and technological enterprises are up to, to make sense of how the natural and designed worlds work, to think critically and independently, to recognize and weigh alternative explanations of events and design trade-offs, and to deal sensibly with problems that involve evidence, numbers, patterns, logical arguments, and uncertainties." (AAAS)

View the Biology Keystone eligible content by clicking here.
View the grade 8 Science PSSA eligible content by clicking here.
View the grade 4 Science PSSA eligible content by clicking here.

Curriculum
Click here to access the QCSD Public Curriculum Site found in Atlas Rubicon

Standards

K-12 Lab Report Expectations
College and career readiness includes many different components. There are key cognitive strategies (Conley, 2014) that students need in order to be prepared for their futures, including the ability to hypothesize a problem, collect data, analyze and interpret results, and communicate those results with others. Science labs support the development of key content knowledge and key cognitive strategies that lead to student readiness for life after high school. The Quakertown Community School District's science lab expectations align with the goal of enhancing students' college and career readiness in the lab sciences and in the broader society. You can find the most updated lab expectation document here.

Jacqueline B. Clymer
K-12 Instructional Coach
District Science Content Specialist
jclymer@qcsd.org

Quakertown Community School District

Academic Departments

Art

Business and Instructional Technology

Family and Consumer Science

Health and Physical Education

Library

Mathematics

Music

ELA

Science

Social Studies

Technology Education

World Language