Mesa Public School's science program is recognized as one of the premier hands-on inquiry-based programs in the country. Science curriculum in Mesa focuses on developing all students’ content and science process skill knowledge as well as critical thinking ability. Mesa's curriculum is aligned with state and national standards and teams of teachers working with content area specialists do on-going revision of materials. All materials (kits) are provided through the Science and Social Science Resource Center, recognized as one of the top materials centers in the nation. These kits contain complete science experiments, activities and cross-curricular support materials such as tradebooks, math and literacy connections.

Fourth Grade Science Curriculum

The science kits we may be studying this year are:

Survivor! (Life Science)
Students are introduced to the general principles of classification in this unit. Students will compare and contrast animals, their behavior and plants as they learn about adaptations to the environment.

Variables (Physical Science)
Students will discover relationships between objects and events through controlled experiments. Students will fling, float, fly and flip objects as they look for interactions, dependencies, and cause and effect.

Energy & Magnetism (Physical Science)
In this unit students are invited to investigate the characteristics of magnets and electricity. After an exploration of how magnets behave, students work with electrical circuits to produce light, heat, sound and an electromagnet.

Every Drop Counts (Earth Science) This unit includes activities designed to make students more aware of the role that water plays in their lives, and how habits have a direct effect on the amount of water used in our homes. This unit should be ordered to coincide with the Zoner and Drip puppet show. In August your team will have the opportunity to schedule a presentation. Puppet show request forms will be sent to the team leader.

Earth, Wind, & Fire (Earth Science)
The students will learn about many environmental factors affecting the Earth as they look at satellite maps and tree-ring core images. They will learn about weather by making their own weather station and tracking weather conditions using current weather maps of Arizona. Earth processes such as erosion, volcanoes, plate tectonics and earthquakes are also explored in this unit.