What's included
Along with compelling print materials, powerful digital resources, and more hands-on materials than any other program, Amplify Science California also includes engaging and realistic experiences, access to diverse role models, countless a-ha moments, and the inspiration and confidence to consider a future as a scientist or engineer.
Year at a glance
Amplify Science California is organized around units where students explore compelling phenomena and real-world problems, develop and strengthen claims by collecting evidence and testing assumptions, and apply their learning in new contexts.
Units at a glance
In each Amplify Science California unit, students are asked to inhabit the role of a scientist or engineer in order to investigate a real-world problem. These problems provide relevant, 21st-century contexts through which students investigate different scientific phenomena.
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Kindergarten units
1
Needs of Plants and Animals
Students take on the role of scientists in order to figure out why there have been no monarch caterpillars in the community garden since vegetables were planted. They investigate how plants and animals get what they need to live and grow, and make a new plan for the community garden that provides for the needs of the monarch caterpillars in addition to producing vegetables for humans.
2
Pushes and Pulls
Students take on the role of pinball machine engineers as they investigate the effects of forces on the motion of an object. They conduct tests in their own prototypes (models) of a pinball machine and use what they learn to contribute to the design of a class pinball machine. Over the course of the unit, students construct a foundational understanding of why things move in different ways.
3
Sunlight and Weather
The principals of Woodland Elementary and Carver Elementary need student weather scientists to help them explain why Woodland’s playground is warmer than Carver’s at recess. Students gather data from models of the sun and Earth’s surface and observe their own playgrounds to figure out how sunlight causes changes in the temperatures of different surfaces. Students then use models to figure out why Woodland’s playground sometimes floods.
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Grade 1 units
1
Animal and Plant Defenses
Students play the role of marine scientists. In their role, students apply their understanding of plant and animal defense structures to explain to aquarium visitors how a sea turtle and her offspring can defend themselves from ocean predators when they are released into the wild.
2
Light and Sound
Students take on the role of light and sound engineers for a puppet show company as they investigate cause and effect relationships to learn about the nature of light and sound. They apply what they learn to design shadow scenery and sound effects for a puppet show.
3
Spinning Earth
As sky scientists, students explain why a boy living in a place near them sees different things in the sky than his grandma does when he talks to her on the phone. Students record, organize, and analyze observations of the sun and other sky objects as they look for patterns and make sense of the cycle of daytime and nighttime.
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Grade 2 units
1
Plant and Animal Relationships
In their role as plant scientists, students work to figure out why there are no new chalta trees growing in the Bengal Tiger Reserve, which is part of a broadleaf forest. Students investigate what the chalta tree needs to survive, then collect and analyze qualitative and quantitative data to solve the mystery.
2
Properties of Materials
As glue engineers, students are challenged to create a glue for use at their school that meets a set of design goals. Students present an evidence-based argument for why their glue mixture will be good for their school to use.
3
Changing Landforms
The director of the Oceanside Recreation Center gets a scare when a nearby cliff collapses overnight. Research reveals that the distance between the Recreation Center’s flagpole and the edge of the cliff have changed over time. Students play the role of geologists and work to figure out why the cliff has changed over time. Based on what they learn about erosion, they advise on whether it is safe to keep the center open even though the cliff is changing.
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Grade 3 units
1
Balancing Forces
People in Faraday are excited to hear that a new train service will be built for their city, but concerned when they hear that it will be a floating train. Students are challenged to figure out how a floating train works in order to explain it to the citizens of Faraday. They develop models of how the train rises, floats, and then falls back to the track, and then write an explanation of how the train works.
2
Inheritance and Traits
Students play the role of wildlife biologists working in Greystone National Park. They study two wolf packs and are challenged to figure out why an adopted wolf (“Wolf 44”) in one of the packs has certain traits. Students observe variation between and within different species, investigate inherited traits and those that result from the environment, and explain the origin of several of the adopted wolf’s traits.
3
Environments and Survival
In their role as biomimicry engineers, students work to figure out how the traits of grove snails affect their survival in different environments. They then explore how the traits of different organisms make them more likely or less likely to survive, collecting and interpreting data to understand how organisms’ traits affect their survival in different environments. Students then apply their understanding to a new challenge: designing effective solutions for the removal of invasive plants.
4
Weather and Climate
In their role as meteorologists, students gather evidence to decide where to build an orangutan reserve by analyzing patterns in weather data. After choosing the strongest evidence, students use data to make arguments about which of three fictional islands has weather most like that of orangutans’ existing habitats, Borneo and Sumatra. They then discern patterns in the locations of natural hazards in order to figure out which ones the Wildlife Protection Organization must prepare for.
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Grade 4 units
1
Energy Conversions
Students take on the role of systems engineers for Ergstown, a fictional town that experiences frequent blackouts, and explore reasons why an electrical system can fail. Students apply what they learned as they choose new energy sources and energy converters for the town, then write arguments for why their design choices will make the town’s electrical system more reliable.
2
Vision and Light
As conservation biologists, students work to figure out why a population of Tokay geckos has decreased since the installation of new highway lights in the rainforest. Students use their understanding of vision, light, and information processing to figure out why an increase in light in the geckos’ habitat is affecting the population.
3
Earth's Features
Playing the role of geologists, students help the director of Desert Rocks National Park explain how and when a particular fossil formed and how it came to be in its current location. Students figure out what the environment of the park was like in the past and why it has so many visible rock layers.
4
Waves, Energy, and Information
In their role as marine scientists, students work to figure out how mother dolphins communicate with their calves. They write a series of scientific explanations with diagrams to demonstrate their growing understanding of how sound waves travel. Then they apply what they’ve learned about waves, energy, and patterns in communication to figure out how to create patterns that can communicate information over distances.
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Grade 5 units
1
Patterns of Earth and Sky
Playing the role of astronomers, students help a team of archaeologists figure out what the missing piece of a recently discovered artifact might have depicted. As they learn about the sun and other stars and the movement of Earth, students can explain what is shown on the artifact and what might be on the missing piece.
2
Modeling Matter
In their role as food scientists at a fictional company, students are introduced to the idea that all matter is made of particles too small to see, and that each different substance is made of particles (molecules) that are unique. They are then challenged to solve two problems: one requires them to separate a mixture, and the other requires them to make unmixable substances mix. Students are challenged to use the particulate model of matter to explain their work to the CEO of the company.
3
The Earth System
The cities of East Ferris and West Ferris are located on different sides of a mountain on the fictional Ferris Island. East Ferris is having a water shortage while West Ferris is not. As water resource engineers, students learn about the Earth system to help figure out what is causing the water shortage problem and design possible solutions, including freshwater collection systems and proposals for using chemical reactions to treat wastewater.
4
Ecosystem Restoration
As ecologists, students work to figure out why the organisms in a part of a Costa Rican rainforest ecosystem aren’t growing and thriving. As they solve this problem, students learn more generally how organisms in an ecosystem get the matter and energy they need to survive, and then write a series of restoration plans that include arguments about why the rainforest ecosystem is not thriving and recommend actions to restore its health.
Print & digital components
Amplify Science California includes instructional guidance and student materials in English and Spanish for a year of instruction, with lessons and activities that keep students engaged every day.
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Teacher materials
Component Format NEW! Classroom Slides
Meet your new hands-free TG! These lesson-specific PowerPoints make delivering daily instruction a snap with embedded links to related resources and suggested teacher talk in the Notes section of each slide.
Digital 
NEW! Exclusive partnership with Mystery Science
Transitioning to the NGSS doesn’t happen overnight. That’s why we’ve partnered with Mystery Science to help ease you into three-dimensional teaching and learning!
Get two years of free access to Mystery Science with every multi-year purchase of Amplify Science California!
Digital 
Teacher’s Reference Guide
Available digitally and in print, this unit-specific reference guide includes scientific background knowledge, planning information and resources, color-coded 3-D Statements, detailed lesson plans, and tips for delivering instruction and differentiating learning.
Print and digital 
Hands-on materials kits
Each unit-specific kit contains consumable and nonconsumable materials for use during hands-on investigations. In each kit you will find:
- Hands-on materials
- 18 copies of each of the Student Books
- Big books (grades K–1)
- Classroom display materials
- One Student Investigation Notebook
Kit 
NGSS Benchmark Assessments
Delivered four times per year in grades 3–5 and three times per year in grades 6–8, our benchmark assessments report on students’ facility with each of the grade-level appropriate DCIs, SEPs, CCCs, and performance expectations of the California NGSS.
And now, Amplify Science California users can choose to administer the NGSS Benchmark Assessments (grades 3–8) through their Illuminate assessment platform.
*Also available in Spanish
Digital
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Student materials
Component Format Student Investigation Notebooks
Available for every unit, the Student Investigation Notebooks contain instructions for activities and space for students to record data, reflect on ideas from texts and investigations, and construct explanations and arguments.
*Also available in Spanish
Print and digital 
Student Books
The age-appropriate Student Books in Amplify Science California allow students to engage with content-rich text, obtain evidence, develop research and close reading skills, and construct arguments and explanations about the ideas they are learning in class.
*Also available in Spanish
Print and digital
Big books (grades K–1)
Amplify Science California never asks our youngest readers to read alone. Rather, we provide scaffolded literacy experiences every step of the way. With our large-format big books, introducing and revisiting concepts though read-aloud and shared reading experiences is a breeze.
*Also available in Spanish
Print
Simulations and practice tools (grades 2+)
Developed exclusively for the Amplify Science California program, these serve as venues for exploration and data collection, allowing students to explore scientific concepts that might otherwise be invisible or impossible to see with the naked eye.
*Spanish versions coming soon
Digital 
Year at a glance
Amplify Science California is organized around units where students explore compelling phenomena and real-world problems, develop and strengthen claims by collecting evidence and testing assumptions, and apply their learning in new contexts.
Units at a glance
In each Amplify Science California unit, students are asked to inhabit the role of a scientist or engineer in order to investigate a real-world problem. These problems provide relevant, 21st-century contexts through which students investigate different scientific phenomena.
-
Grade 6 units
1
Microbiome
There is evidence to suggest that the approximately 100 trillion bacteria living on and in the human body may correlate to many different health conditions. Further, altering one’s microbiome can result in altering one’s health for better or worse. Most notably, a treatment known as a fecal transplant—a transplant that involves using microorganisms from one person’s healthy gut microbiome to cure another person who is suffering from a potentially deadly infection—has been under review. Students take on the role of student researchers to figure out why a fecal transplant cured a patient suffering from a C. difficile infection.
2
Metabolism
Through inhabiting the role of medical students in a hospital, students are able to draw connections between the large-scale, macro-level experiences of the body and the micro-level processes that make the body function as they first diagnose a patient and then analyze the metabolism of world-class athletes. They uncover how body systems work together to bring molecules from food and air to the trillions of cells in the human body.
3
Metabolism: Engineering Internship
Students act as food engineering interns to design a health bar to feed people involved in natural disasters, with a particular emphasis on two populations who have health needs beyond what can be provided by emergency meals: patients and rescue workers. These plans must meet three design criteria: 1) addressing the metabolic needs of a target population; 2) tasting as good as possible; and 3) minimizing costs while serving as many people as possible. Students focus on the practice of considering trade-offs while designing solutions to deepen their understanding of metabolism. They also consider questions of scale, proportion, and quantity as different proportions of types of molecules affect a body’s health and metabolism.
4
Traits and Reproduction
Scientists and engineers are investigating possible ways spider silk can be used for medical purposes, such as for artificial tendons. Students act as student geneticists to investigate what causes variation in spider silk traits. Specifically, they explain why parent spiders have offspring with widely varied silk flexibility traits. They uncover the roles of proteins and genes and the way that genes are inherited.
5
Thermal Energy
In their role as student thermal scientists, students work with the principal of the fictional Riverdale School to help the school choose a new heating system. They compare a system that heats a small amount of water with one that uses a larger amount of cooler groundwater. Students discover that observed temperature changes can be explained by the movement of molecules, which facilitates the transfer of kinetic energy from one place to another. As they analyze the two heating system options, students learn to distinguish between temperature and energy, and to explain how energy will transfer from a warmer object to a colder object until the temperature of the two objects reaches equilibrium.
6
Ocean, Atmosphere, and Climate
Students act as student climatologists helping a group of farmers near Christchurch figure out the cause of significantly colder air temperatures during the El Niño climate event. To solve the puzzle, students investigate what causes regional climates. They learn about energy from the sun and energy transfer between Earth’s surface and atmosphere, ocean currents, and prevailing winds.
7
Weather Patterns
Weather is a complex system that affects our daily lives. Understanding how weather events, such as severe rainstorms, take place is important for students to conceptualize weather events in their own community. Students play the role of student forensic meteorologists as they discover how water vapor, temperature, energy transfer, and wind influence local weather patterns in a fictional town called Galetown. They use what they have learned to explain what may have caused rainstorms in Galetown to be unusually severe in recent years.
8
Earth's Changing Climate
In the role of student climatologists, students investigate what is causing ice on Earth’s surface to melt in order to help the fictional World Climate Institute educate the public about the processes involved. Students consider claims about changes to energy from the sun, to the atmosphere, to Earth’s surface, or in human activities as contributing to climate change.
9
Earth's Changing Climate: Engineering Internship
Students act as civil engineering interns to design a plan to modify a city’s roofs in order to reduce the city’s impact on climate change. These plans must meet three design criteria: 1) reducing impact on the climate; 2) preserving the city’s historic character; and 3) minimizing costs. Students focus on the practice of isolating variables in planning and conducting tests to deepen their understanding of climate change. They also learn about the cause-and-effect mechanisms involved as changes to albedo and combustion of fossil fuels affect climate.
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Grade 7 units
1
Geology on Mars
Evidence that water was once present on a planet is evidence that the planet may once have had living organisms. In their role as student planetary geologists working to investigate the planet Mars, students investigate whether a particular channel on Mars was caused by flowing water or flowing lava. Along the way, students engage in the practices and ways of thinking particular to planetary geologists, and learn to consider a planet as a system of interacting subsystems.
2
Plate Motion
Students play the role of geologists working for the fictional Museum of West Namibia to investigate Mesosaurus fossils found both in southern Africa and in South America. They learn that the surface of the Earth has changed dramatically over the Earth’s history, with continents and ocean basins changing shape and arrangement due to the motion of tectonic plates. They also learn that as the Earth’s surface changes, fossils that formed together may be split apart.
3
Plate Motion: Engineering Internship
Students act as mechanical engineering interns to design a tsunami warning system for the Indian Ocean region. These warning systems must meet three design criteria: 1) giving people as much warning time as possible to move to safety; 2) causing as few false alarms as possible; and 3) minimizing costs as much as possible. Students communicate like engineers and scientists do as they use their understanding of plate motion and patterns in data to create and justify their designs.
4
Rock Transformations
Taking on the role of student geologists, students investigate a geologic puzzle: Two rock samples, one from the Great Plains and one from the Rocky Mountains, look very different but are composed of a surprisingly similar mix of minerals. Did the rocks form together and somehow get split apart? Or did one rock form first, and then the other rock form from the materials of the first rock? To solve the mystery, students learn about how rock forms and transforms, driven by different energy sources.
5
Phase Change
Taking on the role of student chemists working for the fictional Universal Space Agency, students investigate the mystery of a disappearing methane lake on Titan. One team of scientists at the Universal Space Agency claims that the lake evaporated, while the other team of scientists claims that the lake froze. The students’ assignment is to determine what happened to the lake. They discover what causes phase changes, including the role of energy transfer and attraction between molecules.
6
Phase Change: Engineering Internship
Students act as chemical engineering interns to design an incubator for low-birthweight babies. Phase change materials (PCMs) are substances that store and release large amounts of energy during the phase changes of melting and freezing. Since they can easily be reused, PCMs are useful for everyday situations that require temperature control. Students select a combination of PCMs and an insulating lining material, applying concepts about phase change and energy transfer.
7
Chemical Reactions
In the role of student chemists, students explore how new substances are formed as they investigate a problem with the water supply in the fictional town of Westfield. They analyze a brown substance that is in the water, the iron that the town’s pipes are made of, and a substance from fertilizer found to have contaminated the wells that are the source of the town’s water. Students use their findings to explain the source of the contaminating substance.
8
Populations and Resources
Glacier Sea has seen an alarming increase in the moon jelly population. In the role of student ecologists, students investigate reproduction, predation, food webs, and indirect effects to discover the cause. Jellyfish population blooms have become common in recent years and offer an intriguing context to learn about populations and resources.
9
Matter and Energy in Ecosystems
Students examine the case of a failed biodome, an enclosed ecosystem that was meant to be self-sustaining but ran into problems. In the role of ecologists, students discover how all the organisms in an ecosystem get the resources they need to release energy. Carbon cycles through an ecosystem due to organisms’ production and use of energy storage molecules. Students build an understanding of this cycling—including the role of photosynthesis—as they solve the mystery of the biodome collapse.
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Grade 8 units
1
Harnessing Human Energy
Energy-harvesting backpacks, rocking chairs, and knee braces are just a few of the devices that have been created to capture human energy and use it to power electrical devices. Students assume the role of student energy scientists in order to help a team of rescue workers find a way to get energy to the batteries in their equipment during rescue missions. To do so, students learn about potential and kinetic energy, energy conversions, and energy transformations.
2
Force and Motion
In the role of student physicists, students help solve a physics mystery from outer space. A pod returning with asteroid samples should have stopped and docked at the space station. Instead, it is now moving back away from the station, and the video feed showing what happened in the seconds during which it reversed direction has been lost. Did the pod reverse before it got to the space station, or did it hit the station and bounced off? Students explore principles of force, motion, mass, and collisions as they solve this mystery.
3
Force and Motion: Engineering Internship
Students act as mechanical engineering interns to design delivery pods—pods of emergency supplies that will be dropped in areas experiencing a natural disaster. These delivery pods must meet three design criteria: 1) limiting the amount of damage to the cargo during the drop; 2) reusing the pod’s shell as much as possible (for example, as emergency shelter); and 3) minimizing the cost of the pod as much as possible. Students focus on the practice of analyzing data to deepen their understanding of force and motion. They also learn about how structure and function are interrelated to determine the integrity and, therefore, success of their pods.
4
Magnetic Fields
As student physicists consulting for the fictional Universal Space Agency, students work to understand the function of a magnetic spacecraft launcher (a simplified version of real technology currently under development). In particular, they seek to explain why a particular test launched the spacecraft much faster than expected. To do this, they investigate how magnets move some objects at a distance, the source of the energy for that movement, and what causes differences in the energy and forces involved.
5
Light Waves
Australia has one of the highest skin cancer rates in the world: More than half of the people who live there will be diagnosed with skin cancer in their lifetime. In their role as student spectroscopists, students gain a deeper understanding of how light interacts with materials, and how these interactions affect our world—from the colors we see, to changes caused by light from the sun such as warmth, growth, and damage. Students use what they learn about light to explain the causes of Australia’s skin cancer problem.
6
Earth, Moon, and Sun
Students take on the role of student astronomers, advising an astrophotographer who needs to take photographs of the moon. In order to provide this advice, students investigate where the moon’s light comes from, what causes the characteristic changes in the appearance of the moon that we observe, and what conditions are required to view phenomena such as particular moon phases and lunar eclipses.
7
Natural Selection
According to local legend around Oregon State Park, three unfortunate campers were found dead at their campsite and investigators found only one clue—a rough-skinned newt inside the coffeepot that the campers used to make their morning coffee. Student biologists investigate what caused the rough-skinned newts of Oregon State Park to become so poisonous by uncovering mechanisms of natural selection—investigating variation in populations, survival and reproduction, and mutation.
8
Natural Selection: Engineering Internship
Students act as biomedical engineering interns to design a malaria treatment plan. These treatment plans must reduce the population of malaria plasmodia while meeting three design criteria: 1) limiting the amount of the drug-resistance trait that develops in the population; 2) minimizing the side effects caused by the treatment; and 3) minimizing the treatment costs while treating as many patients as possible. Students focus on the practice of analyzing data to deepen their understanding of natural selection. They also learn about the cause-and-effect mechanisms involved when rates of death and reproduction can lead to increased drug resistance in the plasmodia population.
9
Evolutionary History
Students act as student paleontologists to discover the evolutionary history of a mystery fossil. Is this species more closely related to wolves or whales, and how did all three species change over time? Students learn how to interpret similarities and differences among fossils, investigate how natural selection can lead to one population becoming two different species, and investigate evolution over vast periods of time.
Print & digital components
Amplify Science California includes instructional guidance and student materials in English and Spanish for a year of instruction, with lessons and activities that keep students engaged every day.
-
Teacher materials
Component Format COMING SOON! Classroom Slides
Your new hands-free TG is only a few months away! Coming for the 2020-2021 school year, these lesson-specific PowerPoints make delivering daily instruction a snap with embedded links to related resources and suggested teacher talk in the Notes section of each slide.
Digital
Teacher’s Reference Guide
Available digitally and in print, this unit-specific reference guide includes scientific background knowledge, planning information and resources, color-coded 3D Statements, detailed lesson plans, and tips for delivering instruction and differentiating learning.
Print and digital
Hands-on materials kits
Each unit-specific kit contains consumable and nonconsumable materials for use during hands-on investigations. In each kit you will find:
- Hands-on materials
- Classroom display materials
- One Student Investigation Notebook
Kit
NGSS Benchmark Assessments
Delivered four times per year in grades 3–5 and three times per year in grades 6–8, our benchmark assessments report on students’ facility with each of the grade-level appropriate DCIs, SEPs, CCCs, and performance expectations of the California NGSS.
And now, Amplify Science California users can choose to administer the NGSS Benchmark Assessments (grades 3–8) through their Illuminate assessment platform.
*Also available in Spanish
Digital
Classwork
Spend less time looking for student work and more time reviewing it with our new and improved online gradebook.
This intuitive gradebook for grades 6–8 is clean and organized, making it easy to access unreviewed work and student portfolios, give feedback, assign groups based on student performance, and spot trends.
Digital
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Student materials
Component Format NEW! Hardcover Student Edition
Districts looking for a more traditional non-consumable Student Edition can now find it with Amplify Science California! This durable Student Edition is grade-level specific and contains all of the articles that students refer to throughout the year.
With flexible implementation options, Amplify Science California suits every budget:
- Class set of books or individual student copies paired with our digital student experience
- Class set of books or individual student copies paired with our new 2-volume consumable notebook set
Alternatively, for 1:1 schools and districts looking for an entirely digital experience, students can read and interact with all texts and complete all activities online.
Print and digital 
NEW! Student Investigation Notebook (2-volume set)
Pair these consumable Student Investigation Notebooks with the hardcover Student Editions above and allow students the space to record data, reflect on ideas from texts and investigations, and construct explanations and arguments.
This 2-volume set combines activity pages for every unit. Articles are not included. For 1:1 schools and districts looking for an entirely digital experience, students can read and interact with all texts and complete all activities online.
Print and digital 
Student Investigation Notebook with Article Compilation (9-volume set)
Available for every unit, our consumable Student Investigation Notebooks with Article Compilations contain all instructions for activities and space for students to record data, read texts interactively, reflect on ideas from texts and investigations, and construct explanations and arguments.
For 1:1 schools and districts looking for an entirely digital experience, students can read and interact with all texts and complete all activities online.
*Also available in Spanish
Print and digital
Digital student experience
Students can interact with the digital student experience as they conduct hands-on investigations, engage in active reading and writing activities, participate in discussions, record observations, and craft end-of-unit scientific arguments. Students access the digital simulations (“Sims”) and modeling tools through the digital student experience. Developed exclusively for Amplify Science California, these digital tools serve as venues of exploration and data collection, allowing students to explore scientific concepts that might otherwise be invisible to the naked eye.
*Spanish version coming soon
Digital
Explore more programs
Our programs are designed to support and complement one another. Learn more about our related programs.
