Connections are at the heart of learning. A featured component of this unit is the community: both what children can learn from it and contribute back to it. Community connections help strengthen learning by providing purpose and an authentic audience.

The power of interdisciplinary learning is that each discipline can support one another, solidifying concepts through repeated practice. In this example, students are using similar skills in each subject block. Students explore data to develop an evidence base for understanding why pollinators are important to our world, and why members of the community should take action to protect them.

How do you measure instructional quality? With standards and subject matter expertise. This unit was designed with a deep knowledge of subject matter and the standards by which student proficiency should be measured against. Standards informed both the instruction and assessment of the unit. The unit is aligned to The Common Core State Standards and the Next Generation Science Standards.