Washington 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 Common Core mathematics standard Washington adopted.
• Science — almost nothing. There is no laboratory work, no investigation and no scientific modelling here. Washington adopted the NGSS verbatim (as the WSSLS), and we claim a single NGSS performance expectation, partially, explaining exactly why on the entry itself. It is not a science course and we will not sell it as one.
• 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.