BSCS Biology: Understanding for Life

NEW! BSCS Biology: Understanding for Life strongly emphasizes the development of students' problem-solving, critical-thinking, and inquiry skills. The curriculum allows learners to conduct investigations that are meaningful to them and that highlight the analysis of data, the construction of models and explanations, and the communication of scientific information.

Real-world phenomena and challenges motivate learning of scientific concepts and practices, enabling students to build a deep understanding of life science that will serve them for life. Designed to achieve all of the performance expectations in the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) for life science at the high school level, this program’s approach matches the vision of three-dimensional learning in the NGSS.

The program places a comprehensive emphasis on the unifying concepts of biology in place of the memorization of vocabulary and disconnected facts that continue to characterize too much of high school science in the U.S. BSCS Biology: Understanding for Life focuses on all aspects of life to tie each unit topic together by introducing socioscientific issues – complex problems facing society that cannot be understood or addressed without scientific understanding and practices.

The Student Experience

This course calls for students to engage in phenomenon-driven, inquiry-based learning by having students conduct investigations to generate the information they need to construct their personal understanding of science. Chapters also consist of sequences of activities in which students develop and revise models to explain phenomena through investigations and discussions.

BSCS Biology has designed their units around personal, community, and societal challenges that are important to students and the world they live in. Two of the units focus on challenges to human health, and two focus on the sustainability of human and ecological systems.

Communication and Cooperative Learning

Opportunities for collaboration and cooperative learning are a focus of BSCS Biology: Understanding for Life. Investigations provide students increased accountability for self-learning and group work based on their own scientific habits of mind, interests, and research discoveries.

Communication is emphasized through various assessment methods including:

• Performance-based labs and experiments
• Team and individual presentations and written assignments
• Self and peer assessments
• Written tests and quizzes

The Teacher Experience

The Teacher Edition was revised to update and enhance the program’s overall content and provide increased classroom support for teachers. These improvements were informed by extensive feedback from educators. Also, suggestions for differentiated instruction are now highlighted throughout the teacher edition.