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Proponents says Next Generation Science Standards will better prepare today’s workforce Children at River Oaks Elementary School in Galt are more than just students. They’re scientists in the classroom and they do what scientists do — observe, ask questions, identify problems, gather data, analyze it and apply this knowledge in science, technology, engineering and mathematics… Read more »

Teachers from the Santa Clarita Valley’s four elementary school districts are spending their summer vacations studying the state’s Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) during a three-day outreach training session at College of the Canyons. “My biggest hope is from coming to these trainings is that we can remove some of the fear of doing science… Read more »

Columbia Public Schools science teachers are among hundreds of thousands across the country who have received a book from the Heartland Institute that denies that Earth is warming and that human activity is causing it. Although 97 percent of scientists agree that global warming is caused largely by human activities, The Heartland Institute and its… Read more »

At first, people who reject predominant scientific findings that humans are the main cause of climate change may be glad that new public-school science standards don’t require teachers to teach that. But if inquiry-based teaching guides under development in the Iowa K-12 Climate Science Education Initiative are used, students may reach that determination on their… Read more »

Eric Madrid teaches advanced sciences, including topics on climate change and evolution, to high school students in the deep-red Texas Hill Country. As one might expect in this conservative bastion of the nation, some of the students say it’s all lies or fake news. “But that’s usually in the beginning of the semester,” said Madrid,… Read more »

The Nebraska Department of Education says proposed Science Standards are a change in thinking. The department is in the process of updating the standards right now. What’s proposed focuses more on asking students to “think like a scientist” rather than memorize content. State education leaders say the standards were written by 50 science educators from… Read more »

Stoneman Elementary School in Pittsburg, CA, is one of numerous schools throughout the state that are using curriculum provided by science education nonprofits to teach the state’s new Next Generation Science Standards. Science lessons provided by nonprofits are an attractive option for some teachers, especially as schools roll out the new science standards, said Lisa Hegdahl,… Read more »

Three years after Illinois made a bold change in how science would be taught and tested, little is known about how students have performed because neither schools nor families have seen state science exam scores since 2013-14. But the delay in science scores — blamed largely on state budget woes — is unusual and problematic,… Read more »

Sometimes showing is easier than telling. That’s certainly the case in trying to capture the Next Generation Science Standards—the K-12 learning benchmarks that 18 states and the District of Columbia have adopted and are now using in classrooms. Unlike some previous science standards that focused on the facts, these standards emphasize action. They ask students… Read more »

Even as the political blowback against the rapid adoption of the Common Core math and English language competency benchmarks during the Obama administration was reaching a crescendo, backers of the national standards movement had shifted their sights to science. To date, 18 states and the District of Columbia have formally agreed to the new Next Generation… Read more »