Translation:  Chinese | Spanish

The Bellevue School District is in the process of adopting curriculum for 6th, 7th, and 8th grade science courses. In the first semester of 2016-17 the district will be piloting materials in many middle school science classrooms.  The adoption committee will consider the feedback from the community, students and teachers to make a decision about the instructional materials by April 2017. The district will begin using some of the new materials in the fall of 2017.

Why are We Adopting New Curriculum?

The Bellevue School District is aligning our curriculum to the science standards adopted by the state of Washington in October 2013. The new standards are called the Washington State 2013 K-12 Science Learning Standards (www.k12.wa.us/science/NGSS.aspx) or Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). The standards represent a combination of science core ideas, science and engineering practices and cross cutting concepts. The combination of these three dimensions is often described as “three-dimensional learning.” This means that students engage in the practices scientists and engineers do in order to learn the science core ideas while attending to the crosscutting concepts true for multiple science disciplines. For more information about NGSS, please navigate to www.nextgenscience.org.

How Can I Give Feedback?

Please give feedback on the experiences of your students on the parent/guardian survey. If you have explored the materials yourself, please provide feedback on the materials in the survey.

The survey is located here: http://bit.ly/MS-Sci-ParentSurvey

How Can I See the Materials?

Students across the district are using piloted materials in their middle school science classes this fall. The two materials we are piloting are Investigating and Questioning our World through Science and Technology (IQWST) and Amplify Science (6-8).

You may view a representative unit at the following four libraries:

  • Bellevue Central Library – 1111 110th Ave NE, Bellevue, WA 98004
  • Crossroads Library – 15600 NE 8th Street, Bellevue, WA 98008
  • Lake Hills Library – 15590 Lake Hills Boulevard, Bellevue, WA 98007
  • Newport Way Library – 14250 SE Newport Way, Bellevue, WA 98006

To learn more about each of the curricula, find information on the following websites:

If you have any questions regarding the process, please feel free to contact [email protected]

The Bellevue School District acknowledges that we learn, work, live and gather on the Indigenous Land of the Coast Salish peoples, specifically the Duwamish and Snoqualmie Tribes. We thank these caretakers of this land, who have lived and continue to live here, since time immemorial.