Reports: Taking Science to School: Learning and Teaching Science in Grades K-8 (2007)
Report: Taking
Science to School: Learning and Teaching Science in Grades K-8 (2007)
Authors: Duschl, Richard A.; Schweingruber, Heidi A.; Shouse, Andrew
W.
Date: 2007
National Research Council
Improving science education in kindergarten through eighth grade will require
major changes in how science is taught in America's classrooms, as well as
shifts in commonly held views of what young children know and how they learn.
After decades of education reform efforts that have produced only modest gains
in science performance, the need for change is clear. This report emphasizes
that doing science entails much more than reciting facts or being able to
design experiments. Today's standards are still too broad, resulting in superficial
coverage of science that fails to link concepts or develop them over successive
grades, the report says. Teachers need more opportunities to learn how to
teach science as an integrated whole. First, students should know, use, and
interpret scientific explanations of the natural world. Second, they should
be able to generate and evaluate scientific evidence and explanations. Third,
they should understand the nature and development of scientific knowledge.
And finally, students' work should include active participation in scientific
collaboration and discussion.
