STEM

Pasadena USD Adopts Digital Curriculum for STEM

• By Joshua Bolkan
• 10/28/15

The Pasadena Unified School District has adopted a digital STEM curriculum designed specifically to meet the needs of the California Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS).

The district chose STEMscopes California, developed by Accelerate Learning and Rice University and designed to place "problem-based learning, engineering challenges, scientific investigations, math and literacy connections and culminating claim-evidence-reasoning assessments at teachers' fingertips, so they can easily help students understand the NGSS as they were designed," according to a news release.

STEMscopes is designed to work in traditional, blended and 1-to-1 classrooms and features digital resources, supplemental print materials and hands-on exploration kits.

The curriculum will be deployed at all 24 district schools with students in grades K-6 and a Spanish version will also be deployed for the district's large Spanish-speaking population and its dual language Spanish immersion program.

"STEMscopes takes the guesswork out of teaching the Next Generation Science Standards," said Jodi Marchesso, Pasadena USD's STEM curriculum coach, in a prepared statement. "While many resources claim to be NGSS-aligned, they rely heavily on reading and writing about science rather than doing science. STEMscopes is the only resource I've seen that's aligned to meet all of the Next Generation Science Standards. It supports our vision for student-centered learning and follows all the best practices we want to see in our science classrooms."