Grade 5 Kits

Fifth graders take on roles as researchers, explorers and engineers to tackle real-world challenges. From managing deer populations to designing innovative toys, they investigate Earth’s systems, space and the properties of matter. Hands-on experiences encourage critical thinking and creative problem-solving.

The phenomenon of deer overpopulation is used by students to explore matter and energy in organisms and ecosystems.

Using their knowledge, students take on the role of New York State Department of Environmental Conservation researchers

and are tasked with creating a public service announcement to raise awareness about this pressing issue.

Students become Earth and space explorers, but they learn their instructor is missing. Using clues and artifacts from the

professor’s lab, students are tasked with solving what happened. Students engage with questions related to the sun’s brightness and gravity while analyzing data and patterns relating to shadows, day and night and seasonal changes in the night sky.

The students are the next crop of interns at their local Got Water? facility. The Earth’s systems are investigated as their first duty. Students explore and model interactions among Earth’s atmosphere, biosphere, geosphere and hydrosphere. For their final assessment, students apply what they’ve learned to clean up a water source polluted with various contaminants.

Students are welcomed into Toys Matter, a bustling toy company where creativity meets science. They explore and investigate

a wide variety of materials, uncovering their properties and potential uses. The knowledge builds towards the students using

their curiosity and engineering skills to take on an exciting final challenge: build a better bouncy ball.

To assist district decisions surrounding curriculum planning, BOCES 4 Science teachers created suggested pathways based on unit length and the typical school calendar. You can choose to follow a suggested pathway, use it as a reference or create your own science curriculum journey.