Communications of the ACM
National Academies Call For Science Education Makeover
A new U.S. National Research Council report calls for reforming science teaching nationwide from kindergarten to high school.
The report says that current high school graduates are often unable to think critically about science or pursue careers in science and engineering. Too few U.S. workers have strong backgrounds in science, technology, and engineering, and many people lack a fundamental understanding of these fields, the report says.
The conventional science framework, which includes physical sciences, life sciences, earth sciences, and technology, should be introduced to school children and constantly reinforced throughout the education process, not taught only in a few grades, according to the report.
"Currently, science education in the U.S. lacks a common vision of what students should know and be able to do by the end of high school, curricula too often emphasize breadth over depth, and students are rarely given the opportunity to experience how science is actually done," says the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory's Helen Quinn.
The report calls for implementing its guidelines into reforms of science standards, which are already underway in many states.
From USA Today
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