Maine standards alignment

• HS-ESS2-2

  Partially covered

  Analyze geoscience data to make the claim that one change to Earth's surface can create feedbacks that cause changes to other Earth systems.

  Covered by

  • The River and the Watershed

  • · 2 · Where a river's water comes from
  • · 6 · Sediment, and what a dam does to it
  • · 9 · Why the oxygen runs out
  • · 10 · A thousand miles of nitrogen

  What we do and don't cover: The best NGSS fit in the catalog for a feedback argument. The River and the Watershed is built out of them: paving a watershed raises flood peaks AND lowers baseflow through one mechanism (lesson 2); a dam trapping sediment starves the channel below and stops resupplying the delta a thousand miles away (lesson 6); fertiliser on an Indiana field ends as an oxygen-depleted zone in the Gulf (lessons 9 and 10). PARTIAL because of the first verb: the learner ANALYZES geoscience data only in the capstone, where they read a USGS gauge record and an EPA impairment listing for their own watershed. The lessons supply the analysis; the student repeats it once.

• HS-ESS2-5

  Partially covered

  Plan and conduct an investigation of the properties of water and its effects on Earth materials and surface processes.

  Covered by

  • The River and the Watershed

  • · 5 · The river shapes the land
  • · 6 · Sediment, and what a dam does to it
  • · 9 · Why the oxygen runs out

  What we do and don't cover: PARTIAL, and the gap is the entire first half of the sentence. The CONTENT is taught directly and at length: water's properties drive erosion and deposition, meanders, cut banks and point bars (lesson 5), sediment transport and what a dam does to it (lesson 6), and density stratification, which is why the Gulf hypoxic zone persists through the summer (lesson 9). But the learner never PLANS AND CONDUCTS AN INVESTIGATION. There is no laboratory work in this catalog and no fieldwork is required to finish this course. If your science requirement is assessed on students conducting investigations, this contributes and does not discharge. Course 4 of this track teaches how to design one; running it is still the student's own project.

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 Maine Learning Results mathematics standard.
• Science — one partial claim, via the shared NGSS file. Maine adopted the NGSS in 2019 (LD 283) as its Science and Engineering standards, so our one honest science claim — HS-ESS3-1, partial — comes through the shared NGSS mapping with the limit stated on the entry. There is no laboratory work, investigation, or modelling in this catalog, and we will not claim more.
• Maine's own state structure is taught more fully than any one Civics & Government indicator names. Maine Civics teaches the Constitution of 1820 and the split from Massachusetts, the Governor as the only statewide-elected official (with the Attorney General, Secretary of State, and Treasurer chosen by the Legislature), Maine as the first state to adopt ranked-choice voting and the constitutional nuance that limits it, the citizen initiative and the people's veto, the appointed Supreme Judicial Court ('Law Court'), the open town meeting and 16 counties, the unorganized territory, and the split of presidential electoral votes by district — all from Maine's own sources. Civics & Government 1 (the American political system) and 2 (how people influence government) host most of it, but the Maine Learning Results performance expectations are concept statements, not a Maine-government checklist, so ranked-choice voting, the people's veto, and the Legislature's election of the constitutional officers have no code of their own.
• Civics & Government 3 (cultural diversity; Maine Native Americans) — considered, not the catalog's focus. Civics & Government 3 is about the political and civic aspects of cultural diversity — 'the political structures and civic responsibilities of the diverse historic and current cultures of Maine, including Maine Native Americans,' and of the United States and the world. The Maine flagship teaches Maine's political structures and a civic-action habit, but it does not teach the cultural-diversity and Maine Native American political history this standard centers, so we do not claim it. (The civic-action / community-service work it also names is claimed under Civics & Government 2, its honest home.)
• The comparison-to-other-nations indicators across Civics & Government. Several Civics & Government (D) indicators require comparing the American political system, and the rights and duties of U.S. citizens, with those of OTHER nations and other forms of government in the world. This catalog's civics is domestic structure, rights, and participation, so the comparative-government half of Civics & Government 1 and 2 is the reason each is claimed partial rather than full.
• The Economics and Geography strands — considered, deferred this pass. Maine's Social Studies Learning Results also carry Economics and Geography strands, and this catalog's commodity, trade, and resource-map content plausibly reaches parts of them. But we transcribe and verify one strand document at a time, and only the Civics & Government and History strands were fetched and confirmed verbatim this pass. Our rule is fetch-or-don't-cite, so Economics and Geography carry no Maine claims yet rather than being mapped from memory.
• The ELA strands and grade bands outside the Reading/Writing claims above. Maine's ELA Learning Results run across four strands (Language, Speaking & Listening, Reading, Writing) and all grade bands. We claim only the Grades 9-Diploma Reading standards on perspective/purpose, evaluating arguments and claims, and synthesizing sources, and the Writing inquiry standard — the reading, source-evaluation, and research work the catalog genuinely does. The Language and Speaking & Listening strands, the earlier grade bands, and the Reading/Writing standards outside those claims are not separately mapped.
• The AI-literacy ladder, the language courses, and Learning How to Learn — deferred, not denied. Maine's closest frameworks for these (its Technology / computer-science and world-languages Learning Results) have not been fetched and verified yet. Our rule is fetch-or-don't-cite, so these courses carry no Maine claims this pass.