Science The hands-on approach in science continues in second grade. The curriculum emphasizes the development of the processes of science as a means of problem solving. These processes include observing, classifying, measuring, recording, inferring, and predicting. Second grade emphasizes classification skills through the study of insects, buoyancy, measurement, and weather. Students construct nets to collect insects, bring specimens back to the classroom and study them over a period of days.
Children raise butterflies and mealworms to observe the life cycle of insects.
In the sink and float unit, students construct a boat and observe and alter the boat. They then try to make it hold as much cargo as possible. In the measurement unit, students work with mass, length, and time in ways that closely relate to the work they do in math. During the weather unit, students will observe and record the weather using rain gauges, a windsock, and thermometers. They will observe and identify types of clouds.