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Learn.WitUS

Washington, D.C. standards alignment

Designed for high school. Below is every Washington, D.C.standard these courses cover: the exact code, the standard's own words, and the lesson that covers it. Where we only cover part of a standard, it says so, and says which part.

3
standards mapped
1
fully covered
2
partially covered
1
frameworks

This list is filtered. Showing 3 standards covered by How We Know What's Out There, out of 16 mapped for Washington, D.C.. Clear filters

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Read this before you rely on it

  • We mapped this ourselves. This alignment was done by Learn.WitUS against the published standards. It has not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by Washington, D.C.'s education authority or by anyone else.
  • Every code was fetched, then transcribed word for word. Each framework below shows the date its codes and text were retrieved from the publisher.
  • Standards get revised.A code can be renumbered or its wording changed without notice, and some states publish more than one live edition of the same document. Confirm anything you file against your own jurisdiction's current requirements, using the source links below.
  • We would rather claim less. Where the courses only partly cover a standard, this page says partially covered and explains the gap. Standards we considered and could not honestly claim are listed at the bottom, with the reasons.

Washington, D.C. · Science

Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)

HS-ESS1 Earth's Place in the Universe; HS-ESS2 Earth's Systems; HS-ESS3 Earth and Human Activity · NGSS Lead States / nextgenscience.org · retrieved 2026-08-10

OSSE states that “In Dec. 2013, the Next Generation Science Standards were adopted by DC State Board of Education as the new K-12 Science Standards for the District of Columbia Schools.” This is not a science course, so we claim exactly one NGSS performance expectation, partially — see the note on it.

Read the source document →

  • HS-ESS1-3

    Covered
    Communicate scientific ideas about the way stars, over their life cycle, produce elements.

    Covered by

    • · 7 · Reading a star: the HR diagram
    • · 13 · What stars make

    Note: Lesson 13 is this expectation. It gives the mechanism without equations (hydrogen to helium, heavier elements as the core contracts and heats, the stop at iron because fusion past it no longer releases net energy, and the extreme conditions of stellar death for what comes after), and then sets out the four independent lines of evidence that support it. Communicating the idea IS the lesson, which is why this one is full rather than partial.

  • HS-ESS1-2

    Partially covered
    Construct an explanation of the Big Bang theory based on astronomical evidence of light spectra, motion of distant galaxies, and composition of matter in the universe.

    Covered by

    • · 5 · Light itself
    • · 11 · Redshift and an expanding universe
    • · 12 · The Hubble tension
    • · 16 · Capstone: trace a number down the ladder

    What we do and don't cover: The strongest CONTENT match in this catalog: the performance expectation names light spectra, the motion of distant galaxies, and the composition of matter, and those are lessons 5, 11 and 13 of How We Know What's Out There. PARTIAL, and the missing piece is the practice rather than the content: the course supplies and examines the evidence, and the student is asked to construct an explanation only in the graded capstone, where they trace a published number down the chain of inference. If your science requirement is assessed on the three-dimensional NGSS performance, this contributes to it and does not discharge it.

  • HS-ESS1-1

    Partially covered
    Develop a model based on evidence to illustrate the life span of the sun and the role of nuclear fusion in the sun's core to release energy that eventually reaches Earth in the form of radiation.

    Covered by

    • · 7 · Reading a star: the HR diagram
    • · 13 · What stars make

    What we do and don't cover: PARTIAL, and the gap is the verb. Fusion as the sun's energy source and the arc of a star's life are taught (lessons 7 and 13, via the main sequence and stellar evolution), but the student never DEVELOPS A MODEL, which is the performance the expectation actually requires. Do not round this up.

What we don't claim

A standards page is only worth reading if the omissions are honest too. We looked at these and left them out:

  • Mathematics — nothing. This curriculum does no mathematics instruction, so it meets no Common Core mathematics standard.
  • Science — almost nothing. There is no laboratory work, no investigation and no scientific modelling here. We claim a single NGSS performance expectation, partially, and we explain exactly why on the entry itself. It is not a science course and we will not sell it as one.
  • Prohibition and mass incarceration. The curriculum teaches both. D.C.'s 2023 social studies standards contain no standard on either (we searched the full document), so there is nothing for us to cite. The gap is in the standards, not the lessons.
  • D.C.'s economics and geography strands. In the 2023 document these are un-numbered “statements of practice”, not coded standards. There is no code to cite, so we cite none — even though the economics content lines up well.
  • The wider catalog — not yet mapped for D.C. The civics, U.S. history, health, and PE mapping done for Indiana has not been repeated against D.C.'s frameworks yet. D.C. currently carries the Commodity Map alignment only; the catalog-wide pass is queued.

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Showing 3 of 16 Washington, D.C. standards. Clear filters

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