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The New Mexico Public Education Department (PED) recently released draft K-12 STEM-ready science standards. While the draft standards are based heavily on the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), select changes made to many of the performance expectations do not reflect the intent of the official NGSS document or the Framework for K-12 Science Education. These changes… Read more »

New Mexico’s Public Education Department unveiled proposed teaching standards this week that critics say would omit references to evolution, rising global temperatures and the age of Earth from the state’s science curriculum. The standards are based on a science curriculum called the Next Generation Science Standards proposed in 2013 by a consortium of 26 states…. Read more »

  Social media can not only be a way to teach students elements of the scientific process, but those who took part in a program to learn scientific argumentation through social media learned the components of argumentation better than their peers who did not, according to a University of Kansas study. University of Kansas researchers… Read more »

In a partial victory for California, the U.S. Department of Education has granted the state a retroactive waiver from administering outdated science tests, instead allowing it to give students pilot tests based on new science standards. But the department granted the waiver only for the just completed school year. It made it clear that the waiver… Read more »

Deep in the woods at the rustic U.C. Berkeley Forestry Camp in Meadow Valley, Calif., Rob Wade was hosting a series of all-day, comprehensive science education seminars for dozens of K-6 teachers with the Plumas Unified School District. School would begin in a few days and the teachers were gladly giving up some of their… Read more »

On September 8, the Nebraska State Board of Education approved new science standards. The board voted 6-1 to approve the standards, which will introduce climate change in Nebraska high school science classes for the first time. During an hourlong hearing, 14 people testified in favor of the standards, many urging the board to retain the… Read more »

With the adoption of Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) by nearly 20 states, teachers are being asked to rethink the science content they teach and how they teach it. What can curriculum materials, which are used in nearly every classroom, do to help teachers meet the challenges posed by NGSS? One answer comes from a team of… Read more »

A group of students and faculty members at a Lompoc Valley high school are helping pioneer the ways in which science will soon be taught in schools around the state. The Cabrillo High School science department underwent an overhaul this summer to become one of the first in the state to adopt the Next Generation… Read more »

As schools across the state implement the Next Generation Science Standards, this new EdSource primer provides an easy-to-read guide for parents and other community members to understand the rationale for the standards and their potential to affect science instruction in California schools. California adopted the Next Generation Science Standards, or NGSS, in 2013, representing the… Read more »

Next Generation Science Standards has a three-dimensional approach to science education: crosscutting concepts, science and engineering practices, and disciplinary core ideas. Locally, Philip Lala, the science-curriculum coordinator for the Iowa City School District, said the district is transitioning to the new standards and has implemented new curriculum at the elementary level over the last three… Read more »