| Crosscutting Concept 1: | Patterns |
| Crosscutting Concept 2: | Cause and Effect: Mechanism and Explanation |
| Crosscutting Concept 3: | Scale, Proportion, and Quantity |
| Crosscutting Concept 4: | Systems and System Models |
| Crosscutting Concept 5: | Energy and Matter: Flows, Cycles, and Conservation |
| Crosscutting Concept 6: | Structure and Function |
| Crosscutting Concept 7: | Stability and Chance |
According to the National Research Council’s Framework for K–12 Science Education, crosscutting concepts bridge the boundaries of science and engineering domains. These concepts provide students with an organizational framework for understanding and connecting scientific and engineering knowledge across disciplines and school years. The Framework suggests that these crosscutting concepts be explicitly taught and used in classroom instruction to organize teaching and learning in science and engineering.
In Exploring Our Fluid Earth, crosscutting concepts are aligned with Special Features, Activities, or Question Sets. Crosscutting concepts are also embedded in Performance Expectations, which are aligned at the topic level.
For example, this curriculum addresses the crosscutting concept Cause and Effect: Mechanism and Explanation through the activity Density Bags (Fig. 2.12).
Fig. 2.12. The relative density of the liquid in the bag compared to the liquid in the beaker can be determined by observing whether the bag sinks or floats.
Image by Byron Inouye
