Patterns 

High School Science for All

 Patterns Science Overview

The Patterns High School Science Sequence is a three year course pathway and curriculum aligned to the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). 

Each course utilizes:

  • Common instructional strategies

  • Real world phenomena

  • Design challenges to engage students and support their learning.  

The curriculum is a combination of teacher-generated and curated open-content materials.  The Teacher-generated materials are shared freely under a Attribution-NonCommercial-Sharealike Creative Commons License

Teacher workshops for each course are offered each summer in the Portland, Oregon Metro area. In addition, during the school year we offer free professional development in the following formats:

The Patterns Approach

The Patterns Approach to science instruction emphasizes the use of mathematical and phenomenological patterns to predict the future and understand the past.

Harnessing their own experiences, students compare and contrast low-evidence predictions (wild guesses) to their data-informed prediction to live the experience and learn the value of evidence-based reasoning.  Additionally, students engage in several engineering projects in each course, where they must use the Patterns they discover in their designs to optimize their solutions.  

The Patterns Approach utilizes:

  • technology

  • student-constructed knowledge

  • frequent opportunities for student talk, and language supports to ensure the engagement and success of every student.  

By emphasizing, rather than removing, the mathematical connections to science, the Patterns Approach supports student conceptual understanding by:

  • connecting real-world inquiry experiences

  • using graphical representations and mathematical representations of science phenomena. 

For more on the Patterns Approach, read lead physics course developer Bradford Hill’s article in The Science Teacher: “The Patterns Approach – engaging Freshman in the practices of science.”

What is Patterns?

This is a recorded webinar that is targeted for teachers and/or district leaders who want to know more about the open-source Patterns curriculum. An overview of why these courses were created, the Design Principles that the three courses are based on, program evaluation data, and how the 3 courses (Physics, Chemistry, & Biology) work together as a sequence to prepare students for college and career are provided. The link to the powerpoint that was used during the presentation is also provided.

Don’t have time to watch the whole webinar? Check out this shorter video in the meantime.

High School Science for All Curriculum

This curriculum is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

For more information, contact us at info@pdxstem.org.

Core Sequence Documents