This student guide contains part one of the first year in the Portland Project, a three-year high school integrated science curriculum sequence. Part one, the first of four parts, involves the student in a series of activities intended to increase his understanding of his perceptual abilities and their limitations. Organization and classification as parts of perception are emphasized, involving the introduction of the physical properties of matter as aids to organization. The first year program is not excessively formal or quantitative, based on the rationale that a new idea should proceed from an intuitive, non-quantitative experience to a more quantitative one. The Portland Project, intended to replace the traditional courses in biology, chemistry and physics, treats science as a structure that proceeds from observation to the development of general principles and then to the application of those principles to more involved problems. A review of the development of the three-year program, a discussion of its rationale and the content of each of the three courses, and a three-year course subject outline are included in this volume. About half of the right-hand side of most pages is blank for the purpose of recording data, answering questions, and other notes. (For additional information about the Project, see SE 013 703, SE 013 704, SE 013 705, and SE 013 706.) (Author/PR)