PRISMS: Phenomena & Representation for Instruction of Science in Middle School

Welcome to PRISMS Home

PRISMS is a collection of reviewed phenomena and representations for middle school. Our goal is to help increase the amount of content aligned and pedagogically useful resources available in the National Science Digital Library (NSDL) for middle school teachers and students.

Resources are evaluated for how well they support learning goals in Science for All Americans, Benchmarks for Science Literacy, and the National Science Education Standards and are grouped in the main menu by categories used in the Science Curriculum Topic Study.

What are phenomena?
"Phenomena" are real-world objects, systems, and events that provide evidence of key ideas in science.

What are representations?
"Representations" are pictures, video clips, graphs, simulations, and analogies that can help clarify key ideas in science

  • main mathematics and science alliance
  • NSF
  • NSDL
Material in these pages is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. DUE 0435217. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

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