patterns – cause and effect, mechanism and explanation – scale, proportion, quantity – systems and system model – energy and matter, flows, cycles and conservation – structure and function – stability and change

Appendix G

This systems literacy initiative will use the United States based Next Generation Science Standards and their definition of Cross Cutting Concepts as part of the overall project.

There are a number of related websites.

1. The US Council of Chief State School Officers have produced a 62 page guide to the Cross Cutting Concepts. The purpose of the guide is to provide a common scientific language that students and teachers use as they engage in the formative assessment process.
   
2. The San Diego County Office of Education has a page “Using the Crosscutting Concepts to Build Student Sense-Making and Reasoning” which has a series of useful questions for each of the 7 cross cutting concepts. They have also decided to group them into three groups
   Patterns
   Causality – “Cause and Effect” and “Structure and Function”
   Systems – “Systems and System Models”, “Stability and Change”, “Scale Proportion and Quantity”, and “Energy and Matter”
   
   The way they show the graphic, and also how the concepts are numbered 1 to 7 in Appendix G might imply an ordering of approach which may not be the best, or only, way to approach sense making.
   
3. The US National Science Teachers Association has a page listing them https://ngss.nsta.org/CrosscuttingConceptsFull.aspx and as far as I can find so far not much else.
   
4. The Physics classroom website has lists of activities by the Cross Cutting Concepts. There are many for each concept. he variety is good. It follows the same ordering as the Appendix with Systems and System Models the fourth in the sequence down the page.
   They have added ” Defining the system under study—specifying its boundaries and making explicit a model of that system—provides tools for understanding and testing ideas that are applicable throughout science and engineering.” to the section.
   
5. The lead author of the Appendix G of the NGSS Gary Snyder has a page describing the cross cutting concepts
6. The website STEM Teach tools has a checklist very similar to that on the San Diego website.
7. This page updated 25 March 2021 Peter Tuddenham