Since its 2014 release, this Guide has become an essential tool for educators to explore the complex structure of three-dimensional standards, including the performance expectations (PEs) that integrate particular elements of the three dimensions (practices, core ideas, and crosscutting concepts) together. These elements appear below the list of PEs, and the book makes it so easy to refer to the elements that many educators refer to it more often than the standards. The original version was designed as a tool to support educators that had adopted the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). But since its release, many states have developed their own standards based on A Framework for K-12 Science Education, and most states have adopted the NGSS or developed their own standards. This revised version adds several new features that make it even more helpful: descriptions of the science and engineering practices and crosscutting concepts from the Framework; K-12 progressions of the elements of all three dimensions, as well as the connections to the nature of science and to engineering; a unique code for every element (based on the codes in The NSTA Atlas of the Three Dimensions) for easy reference to a particular element; chapters devoted to elements of the three dimensions in each grade span; a chapter on PEs that includes clarification statements and assessment boundaries and a table that identifies which elements of the three dimensions are integrated together for every PE; and tools to make sense of the standards, including questions for unpacking them; a Venn diagram of practices in science, mathematics, and English; and a rubric for evaluating three-dimensional lessons and units. Whether you used the original purple book
or this is your first time using it, this new version will likely become an indispensable tool in your work supporting three-dimensional teaching and learning.