Washington standards alignment

• 5-LS2-1

  Partially covered

  Develop a model to describe the movement of matter among plants, animals, decomposers, and the environment.

  Covered by

  • Manure and Compost

  • · 1 · What a loop is, and the two rules this course reads
  • · 9 · What composting is: carbon, nitrogen, water and air
  • · 22 · Build your own loop

  What we do and don't cover: The capstone (lesson 22, an assignment the learner submits and an instructor grades) has the learner develop exactly this model for their own ground: boxes for plants, animals, decomposers and soil, arrows labelled with the matter each carries, and the leaks out of the system. PARTIAL because the clarification statement's emphasis, that plants change matter that is not food (air, water) into food, is not taught: the course follows decomposed material back into soil and crops, not photosynthesis.

• MS-LS2-3

  Partially covered

  Develop a model to describe the cycling of matter and flow of energy among living and nonliving parts of an ecosystem.

  Covered by

  • Manure and Compost

  • · 1 · What a loop is, and the two rules this course reads
  • · 9 · What composting is: carbon, nitrogen, water and air
  • · 22 · Build your own loop

  What we do and don't cover: Matter cycling among animals, microbes, soil and crops is taught directly, and the capstone (an instructor-graded assignment) has the learner build the model and define the boundary of their own system, as the clarification statement asks. PARTIAL because energy flow appears only as the heat a compost pile gives off; there is no treatment of energy moving through an ecosystem.

• HS-LS2-3

  Partially covered

  Construct and revise an explanation based on evidence for the cycling of matter and flow of energy in aerobic and anaerobic conditions.

  Covered by

  • Manure and Compost

  • · 9 · What composting is: carbon, nitrogen, water and air
  • · 10 · Heat, oxygen and time: the stages of a pile
  • · 12 · Turning, cold heaps, and worms

  What we do and don't cover: Composting is taught as aerobic decomposition, and the learner reads temperature evidence to tell a working aerobic pile from cold zones the NRCS composting chapter calls likely sites of anaerobic decomposition. PARTIAL because the course stops at that evidence: it does not teach aerobic or anaerobic respiration as processes (which the assessment boundary also excludes at the chemical level) and treats energy only as pile temperature.

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 catalog does no mathematics instruction, so it meets no Common Core mathematics standard Washington adopted.
• Science: partial claims, through the shared NGSS file. This state adopts the NGSS (see the adoption note above), so our science claims come through the shared NGSS mapping, each partial and with its limit stated on the entry; any NGSS code this state rewords or dropped is listed separately on this page. There is no laboratory work or investigation in this catalog, and we claim no more than the lessons teach.
• Tribal governments and the Since Time Immemorial curriculum. Washington's social studies standards repeatedly reference tribal constitutions, tribal sovereignty, and the Since Time Immemorial curriculum (e.g., C2.11-12.2 names tribal constitutions; the standards footnote tribal connections throughout). The catalog does not teach tribal government, so we claim only the United-States and Washington-state portions of those standards and mark C2.11-12.2 partial for exactly this reason.
• The flagship's election and tax specifics have no dedicated Washington code. Washington Civics teaches the all-mail (vote-by-mail) system and the top-two primary — the state's most distinctive civics content — plus the contested no-personal-income-tax tradition (the uniformity clause; the 2021 capital-gains tax upheld in 2023). Washington's high-school Civics standards contain no discrete election-administration or tax-policy standard, so this election content is taught but carries no Washington claim, and the tax content is reached only through the general C2 civics standards. The specifics have no code — the gap is in the standards, not the course.
• Prohibition, the War on Drugs as domestic policy, and mass incarceration. The catalog teaches all three. Washington's 2019 social studies standards are analytical and thematic (“current events rooted in past events,” “individuals and movements”) rather than event-naming, so — unlike Washington, D.C. — there is no Washington standard that names Prohibition or mass incarceration to cite. We claim the War on Drugs' foreign-policy arm only through the broad H4.11-12.3, and mark it partial.
• The wider catalog — health, PE, AI-literacy, and languages. Washington's relevant frameworks for these (Health and Physical Education; Computer Science; World Languages) have not been fetched and verified yet. Our rule is fetch-or-don't-cite, so these courses carry no Washington claims this pass.