Direct engagement provides opportunities to build essential scientific skills such as observing, measuring, replicating experiments, manipulating equipment, and collecting and reporting data. It demonstrates the fact that the practice of science is tentative, interactive, and surprising. Students also engage with questions by studying natural phenomena and processes via the work of scientists and engineers as these appear in texts, papers, videos, the internet, and other media. These sources are valuable because they efficiently organize and highlight the key concepts and supporting evidence that characterize the most important work in science. Such study can be supported by demonstrations, experiments, or simulations that deliberately manage features of a natural object or process.
Time limits present a challenge for school curriculum and instruction.
Schools and teachers must thoughtfully scope, sequence, and coordinate curricula, and use a range of instructional approaches. Special attention must also be paid to identifying natural phenomena and technological solutions that are pedagogically and intellectually richer than others. There are curriculum programs that have selected important, rich examples for their content and sequence of activities. This framework is designed to provide guidance as to what content matters most.