Performance Expectations

ESS1 helps students formulate an answer to questions such as:

• What is Earth’s place in the universe?
• What makes up our solar system?
• How can the motion of Earth explain seasons and eclipses?
• How do people figure out that the Earth and life on Earth have changed through time?

The ESS1 help students formulate an answer to the question: “What is the universe, and what is Earth’s place in it?” The ESS1 Disciplinary Core Idea from the NRC Framework is broken down into three sub-ideas: the universe and its stars, Earth and the solar system and the history of planet Earth. Students examine the processes governing the formation, evolution, and workings of the solar system and universe. Some concepts studied are fundamental to science, such as understanding how the matter of our world formed during the Big Bang and within the cores of stars. Others concepts are practical, such as understanding how short-term changes in the behavior of our sun directly affect humans. Engineering and technology play a large role here in obtaining and analyzing the data that support the theories of the formation of the solar system and universe. The crosscutting concepts of patterns, scale, proportion, and quantity, energy and matter, and stability and change are called out as organizing concepts for these disciplinary core ideas. In the ESS1 performance expectations, students are expected to demonstrate proficiency in developing and using models, using mathematical and computational thinking, constructing explanations and designing solutions, engaging in argument, and obtaining, evaluating and communicating information; and to use these practices to demonstrate understanding of the core ideas.

Calculation Method for DCI

Disciplinary Core Ideas are larger groups of related Performance Expectations. So the Disciplinary Core Idea Grade is a calculation of all the related Performance Expectations. So click on the Performance Expectation name below each Disciplinary Core Idea to access the learning targets and proficiency scales for each Disciplinary Core Idea's related Performance Expectations.