Mountains Recreation & Conservation Authority
Temescal Field Science Program Curriculum
The Temescal Field Science Program focuses on Earth and Life Science, and is dedicated to the goal of bringing a meaningful outdoor experience to students. This overnight environmental educational program has served Los Angeles students in the Los Angeles Basin for the past six years. Many of the students who attend the program have never seen stars away from the glare of city lights, hiked through canyons blooming with wildflowers, or had the pleasure of roasting a marshmallow over a campfire. In order to attend our program, elementary, middle, or high school classes apply for a grant through LAUSP, the Los Angeles Urban Systemic Program. Any school or community group may also attend, however they need to acquire their own private funding. Our aim is to bring the wonders of the natural world to life for students who oftentimes have never had the opportunity to experience them. Students, with their teachers and chaperones come for the two-night and threeday program. However, we can adjust our schedule to specific requests. Participants stay in new, heated, and comfortable dormitories. Nutritious meals are provided. The students participate in a variety of activities including handson experiential science, hiking, sensory and team building activities, nature games, a composting program, and a campfire program. Our core curriculum is designed to immerse students into the realm of Earth and Life Sciences in a way that cannot be accomplished in the classroom. The curriculum is specifically written to align with the new and rigorous California Education Content Standards. The students are more able to enjoy and remember the standards for Earth and Life Science when actually immersed in a natural setting. Other programs including the food waste program, team building, nature games, and our campfire program build lasting relationships between the students and the natural world. Students will return to their communities and classrooms with real life experiences, empowered to protect the environment, and able to draw meaningful connections to science.
Many teachers in California are facing the challenge of developing new lessons to meet the California Education Content Standards. Teachers and students will benefit enormously from participating in the most cutting edge curriculum, aligned with the California Education Content Standards for Science, and developed by education specialists. Below is a list of standards and indicators by grade, which are the fabric of our core programs . For more information about the Temescal Field Science Program, please call 310-454-1395 x106. Temescal Field Science Program Curriculum 3rd Grade Earth Science Objects in the sky move at regular and predictable patterns. 1 a, 4 a-e 1. Students will know that the patterns of stars stay the same, although they appear to move across the sky nightly, and that different stars can be seen in different seasons. 2. Students will know that the way in which the moon’s appearance changes during the four-week lunar cycle. 3. Students will know that telescopes magnify the appearance of some distant objects in the sky, including the moon and the planets, and the number of stars that can be seen through telescopes is dramatically greater than the number that can be seen by the unaided eye. 4. Students will know that Earth is one of several planets that orbit the Sun and that the moon orbits the Earth. 5. Students will know that the position of the Sun in the sky changes during the course of the day and from season to season 6. Students will know that energy comes from the Sun to Earth in the form of light. Life Science Adaptations in physical structure or behavior may improve an organism’s chance for survival. 3 b,d,e 1. Students will know examples of diversity of animals in different environments. 2. Students will know when environment changes, some animals survive and reproduce; others die or move to new locations. 3. Students will know that some animals that once lived on earth have completely disappeared and that some resemble others alive today.
Social Sciences Students describe the American Indian nations in their local region long ago and in the recent past. 3.2: 1,2 1. Students will be able to describe national identities, religious beliefs, customs, and various folklore traditions. 2. Students will be able to discuss the ways in which physical geography, including climate, influenced how the local Indian nations adapted to their natural environment (e.g., how they obtained food, clothing, tools.) 4th Grade Earth Science Waves, wind, water, and ice shape and reshape Earth’s land surface. 5 a-c 1. Students will know that some changes in the earth are due to slow processes, such as erosion, and that some changes are due to rapid processes, such as landslides, volcanic eruptions, and earthquakes. 2. Students will know that moving water erodes landforms, reshaping the land by taking it away from some places and depositing it as pebbles, sand, silt, and mud in other places (weathering, transport, and deposition). The properties of rocks and minerals reflect the processes that formed them. 4 a,b 1. Students will know how to differentiate among igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks by referring to their properties and methods of formation (the rock cycle). 2. Students will know how to identify common rock-forming minerals (including quartz, calcite, feldspar, mica, and hornblende) and ore minerals by using a table of diagnostic properties. Life Science Living organisms depend on one another and on their environment for survival. 3 a-c 1. Students will know that ecosystems can be characterized by their living and nonliving components. 2. Students will know that in any particular environment, some kinds of plants and animals survive well, some survive less well, and some cannot survive at all. 3. Students will know that many plants depend on animals for pollination and seed dispersal, and animals depend on plants for food and shelter. 5th Grade
Earth Science The solar system consists of planets and other bodies that orbit the Sun in predictable paths 5 a-c 1. Students will know that the Sun, an average star, is the central and largest body in the solar system and is composed primarily of hydrogen and helium. 2. Students will know that the solar system includes the planet Earth, the Moon, the Sun, eight other planets and their satellites, and smaller objects, such as asteroids and comets. 3. Students will know that the path of a planet around the Sun is due to the gravitational attraction between the Sun and the planet. Water on Earth moves between the oceans and land through the processes of evaporation and condensation. 3 a-e 1. Students will know that most of Earth’s water is present as salt water in the oceans, which cover most of Earth’s surface. 2. Students will know that when liquid water evaporates, it turns into water vapor in the air and can reappear as a liquid when cooled or as a solid if cooled below the freezing point of water. 3. Students will know that water vapor in the air moves from one place to another and can form fog or clouds, which are tiny droplets of water or ice, and can fall to Earth as rain, hail, sleet, or snow. 4. Students will know that the amount of fresh water located in rivers, lakes, underground sources, and glaciers is limited and that its availability can be extended by recycling and decreasing the use of water. 5. Students will know the origin of the water used by their local communities. Life Science Plants and animals have structures for respiration, digestion, waste disposal, and transport of materials. 2 a,c 1. Students will know that many multicellular organisms have specialized structures to support the transport of materials 2. Students will know the sequential steps of digestion and the roles of teeth and the mouth, esophagus, stomach, small intestine, large intestine, and colon in the function of the digestive system. 6th Grade Earth Science Topography is reshaped by the weathering of rock and soil and by the transportation and deposition of sediment.
2 a-d 1. Students will know that water running downhill is the dominant process in shaping the landscape, including California’s landscape. 2. Students will know that rivers and streams are dynamic systems that erode, transport sediment, change course, and flood their banks in natural and recurring patterns. 3. Students will know that beaches are dynamic systems in which the sand is supplied by rivers moved along the coast by the action of waves. 4. Students will know that earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, landslides, and floods change human and wildlife habitats. Plate tectonics accounts for important features of Earth’s surface and major geologic events. 1 a-f 1. Students know evidence of plate tectonics is derived from the fit of the continents; the location of earthquakes, volcanoes, and midocean ridges; and the distribution of fossils, rock types, and ancient climatic zones. 2. Students know Earth is composed of several layers: a cold, brittle lithosphere; a hot, convecting mantle; and a dense, metallic core. 3. Students know lithospheric plates the size of continents and oceans move at rates of centimeters per year in response to movements in the mantle. 4. Students know that earthquakes are sudden motions along breaks in the crust called faults and that volcanoes and fissures are locations where magma reaches the surface. 5. Students know major geologic events, such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and mountain building, result from plate tectonics. 6. Students know how to explain major features of California geology (including mountains, faults, volcanoes) in terms of plate tectonics. Life Science Organisms in ecosystems exchange energy and nutrients among themselves and with the environment. 5 a-e 1. Students will know that energy entering ecosystems as sunlight is transferred by producers into chemical energy through photosynthesis and then from organism to organism through food webs. 2. Students will know that matter is transferred over time from one organism to others in the food web and between organisms and the physical environment. 3. Students will know that populations of organisms can be categorized by the functions they serve in an ecosystem. 4. Students will know that different kinds of organisms may play similar ecological roles in similar biomes.
5. Students will know that the number and types of organisms an ecosystem can support depends on the resources available and on abiotic factors, such as quantities of light and water, a range of temperatures, and soil composition. 7th-8th Grade Earth Science The structure and composition of the universe can be learned from studying stars and galaxies and their evolution. 4 a-e 1. Students will know that galaxies are clusters of billions of stars and may have different shapes. 2. Students will know that the Sun is one of many stars in the Milky Way galaxy and that stars may differ in size, temperature, and color. 3. Students will know how to use astronomical units and light years as measures of distances between the Sun, stars, and Earth. 4. Students will know that the stars are the source of light for all bright objects in outer space and that the Moon and planets shine by reflected sunlight, not by their own light. 5. Students will know the appearance, general composition, relative position and size, and motion of objects in the solar system, including planets, planetary satellites, comets, and asteroids. Evidence from rocks allows us to understand the evolution of life on Earth. 4 a-g 1. Students will know that Earth processes today are similar to those that occurred in the past and slow geologic processes have large cumulative effects over long periods of time. 2. Students will know that the history of life on Earth has been disrupted by major catastrophic events, such as major volcanic eruptions or the impacts of asteroids. 3. Students will know that the rock cycle includes the formation of new sediment and rocks and that rocks are often found in layers, with the oldest generally on the bottom. 4. Students will know that evidence from geologic layers and radioactive dating indicates Earth is approximately 4.6 billion years old and that life on this planet has existed for more than 3 billion years. 5. Students will know that fossils provide evidence of how life and environmental conditions have changed. 6. Students will know how movements of Earth’s continental and oceanic plates through time, with associated changes in climate and geographic connections, have affected the past and present distribution of organisms. 7. Students will know how to explain significant developments and extinctions of plant and animal life on the geologic time scale.
Life Science Biological evolution accounts for the diversity of species developed through gradual processes over many generations. 3 b,c,e 1. Students will know the reasoning used by Charles Darwin in reaching his conclusion that natural selection is the mechanism of evolution. 2. Students will know how independent lines of evidence from geology, fossils, and comparative anatomy provide the bases for the theory of evolution 3. Students will know that extinction of a species occurs when the environment changes and that the adaptive characteristics of a species are insufficient for its survival. 9th-12th Grade Earth Science Earth-based and space-based astronomy reveal the structure, scale, and changes in stars, galaxies, and the universe over time. 2 a,b,d 1. Students will know that the solar system is located in an outer edge of the disc-shaped Milky Way galaxy, which spans 100,000 light years. 2. Students will know that galaxies are made of billions of stars and comprise most of the visible mass of the universe. 3. Students will know that stars differ in their life cycles and that visual, radio, and X-ray telescopes may be used to collect data that reveal those differences. Earth Science Plate tectonics operating over geologic time have changed patterns of land, sea, and mountains on Earth’s surface. 3b,c 1. Students will know the principal structures that form at the three different kinds of plate boundaries. 2. Students will know how to explain the properties of rocks based on the physical and chemical conditions in which they formed, including plate tectonic processes. Life Science Stability in an ecosystem is a balance between competing effects. 6 a-f 1. Students will know that biodiversity is the sum total of different kinds of organisms and is affected by alterations of habitats.
2. Students will know how to analyze changes in an ecosystem resulting from changes in climate, human activity, introduction of non-native species, or changes in population size. 3. Students will know how fluctuations in population size in an ecosystem are determined by the relative rates of birth, immigration, emigration, and death. 4. Students will know how water, carbon, and nitrogen cycle between abiotic resources and organic matter in the ecosystem and how oxygen cycles through photosynthesis and respiration. 5. Students will know that a vital part of an ecosystem is the stability of its producers and decomposers. 6. Students will know that at each link in a food web, some energy is stored in newly made structures but much energy is dissipated into the environment as heat. (energy pyramid.)