STREAM Missions Grade 3
Third-Grade Titles
In Being Healthy, students learn about different things that affect the body both in positive ways and negative ways.
Essential Question:
Why is it important to be healthy?
In Ecology, students learn about interactions, populations, and habitats in ecosystems. They examine food webs, water pollution, animal population, and survival.
Essential Question:
Why are interactions and populations in an ecosystem important?
In Electricity, students experiment with electricity in different ways. They build circuits and test objects.
Essential Question:
What impact does electricity have on our world?
In Environment and Climate, students learn about weather, climate, Earth’s atmosphere, and air pollution. They explore wind and water power and nonrenewable and renewable resources.
Essential Question:
How does climate and weather affect different environments?
In Forces, students experiment with how forces work in different scenarios and predict future motion.
Essential Question:
How can you tell whether the forces on an object are balanced or unbalanced?
In Fossils and Survival, students learn about dinosaur fossils, skeletons, and remains. They learn about the roles and job duties of a paleontologist and the Cambrian period.
Essential Question:
What is the role of a paleontologist?
In Life Cycles, students demonstrate the life cycles of humans, plants, and animals. They witness the effect of pollution on a food chain.
Essential Question:
What is the importance of a life cycle?
In Magnetism, students experiment with magnets in different ways. They design an original magnetic game, create a magnetic painting, and build a crane.
Essential Question:
How are compasses affected by magnets?
In Matter, students experiment with the different states of matter. They investigate how matter can change and be used.
Essential Question:
What is the difference between the states of matter?
In Motion, students experiment with how motion is created with different actions and forces.
Essential Question:
In what ways does motion occur?
In Science Skills, students learn about the scientific method. They explore observations, measurements, science tools, steps of the scientific method, variables, evaluating, concluding, and communicating.
Essential Question:
How do observations and measurements help with the scientific method?
In Seasons and Weather, students learn about what causes the weather and seasons. They explore weather tools and forecasts.
Essential Question:
How are seasons experienced differently around the world?
In Skyscrapers, students build and create different structures. They experiment with different materials and forces.
Essential Question:
How do you decide on the shape of a structure you are building?
In Space, students students learn about the solar system. They make models of the Earth, Sun, Moon, and planets; orbits and rotations; the Moon’s phases; and the solar system.
Essential Question:
How do the Earth and Moon rotate and orbit around the Sun?
In Traits and Variation, students learn about inherited and learned traits, inheritance, variations, and environmental effects.
Essential Question:
How can traits be passed on through generations?