USING CROSS CUTTING CONCEPTS AS THE FRAME FOR PHENOMENON-BASED SCIENCE INVESTIGATIONS AND SCIENCE METHODS INSTRUCTION

Science literacy and proficiency is not just an accumulation of facts and data. The Cross Cutting Concepts (CCCs) can be viewed as an entry point to both science teaching and science learning. They are the resource than enable students’ sensemaking of concepts, the relationships between or among these concepts, and their application and implications across disciplines. The CCCs, in combination with Backward Design principles, can serve as an instructional tool in methods classes for pre-service teachers, particularly those in the early to middle grades who may be more cautious about teaching science. When pre-service teachers frame lessons with the CCCs, this can facilitate and improve lesson and curriculum design, and allow for the doing of science and engagement of multiple scientific process skills or science and engineering practices (SEPs). Examples of student-developed and collaborations of CCC-framed 3-dimensional phenomenon-based lessons across the geosciences are offered that expand students’ conceptual understanding and allowing them to notice and wonder about the big, and bigger, picture.