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Paper
State Science Standards: An Appraisal of Science Standards in 36 States
The Kansas Curriculum Standards91 for Science places much emphasis on the importance of effective communication. In an introductory passage, written, mathematical, oral, and dataretrieval skills are stressed, as are skills related to working effectively with others. These general considerations are made specific, for example, in such standards as this one for grade 9-12 students:92
Communicates a high level of scientific understanding using oral language, written language, mathematics, statistics, symbols, tables, graphs and technology. Most of the standards are accompanied by examples of how a student might demonstrate achievement of the standard. In general, the examples are wellchosen and clear. There are some exceptions. Here is a glaring one for grades 68, in which the effort to be exhaustive appears to have pushed the writers into several kinds of error:
[The student] communicates scientific understandings using oral language, written language, mathematics, symbols, tables, graphs, visual aids, and/or technology. (Example: Verbal [the writers mean oral] explains why increasing the number of light bulbs in a series circuit decreases the current flowing through them; written--in a journal, writes a paragraph summarizing thoughts about the word "greenhouse" and its relationship to climate; technological--creates a hypercard stack of five cards using graphics to illustrate how electrical circuits work; using a pH probe and a computer, determines the pH of substances such as household ammonia, vinegar, tap water, dissolved AlkaSeltzer, and lemon juice; makes a chart of the results; symbolicwrites a formula relating "B" to "h" where "B" = height a ball bounces and "h" = height from which the ball drops.) 93 The examples begin well enough; a good explanation of the lightbulb effect will reveal understanding of series circuits. But the journal assignment, which asks for a oneparagraph "thought" on greenhouses, would do far better to require an essay on the function of glass in a greenhouse and the analogous function of such greenhouse gases as CO 2 in the earth's atmosphere. "Creating a hypercard stack of [exactly?] five cards using graphics" may demonstrate the student's knowledge of computer skills and his artistic talent, but I cannot imagine how he could cover the entire subject of "how electrical circuits work." The act of pH determination will doubtless demonstrate the student's ability to use an instrument, but will he understand at this grade level what pH--the negative of the base10 logarithm of the hydrogen ion concentration--implies? I doubt it. And finally, deriving the formula for the bouncing ball--the definition of what physicists call the coefficient of restitution--is well beyond the capabilities of the middle school student. In spite of these occasional lapses, the Kansas Standards is for the most part clear, well organized, and to the point.
Kansas
The Kentucky Core Content for Science Assessment document is marred by a wellintentioned but not very successful attempt to fit the sciences into an interdisciplinary relationship with other areas of knowledge, as outlined in a companion document.94 The result is a dense laundry list of items that students are expected to know, surrounded by jargon that obscures the internal structure of science itself. Theory is slighted, and definitions of important terms are nearly absent. Such projects as "communicate scientific discoveries by creating an original product or performance using music, visual arts, drama or dance," or "listen to Holtz's [sic] The Planets [and] compare the scientific and musical elements, create movement sequences illustrating the musical or scientific ideas," are not likely to do much to deepen the student's insight into science, the arts and humanities, or the connections between them. Evolution is skirted and euphemized under such titles as "Change." No student following these guidelines will receive much help in integrating his understanding of the life sciences under their main organizing principle. Both documents also contain far too many typographical errors.
Kentucky
The Louisiana Science Framework95 is a carefully organized document. It begins with a brief discussion of general educational concerns, and continues with a brief but fine section entitled "Nature of Science," which discusses the nature of scientific theory and the methods of science in a particularly lucid way. The main body of the Framework is a 35-page list of benchmarks by which student achievement of the standards can be assessed. The list is carefully drawn, complete, and grade-appropriate. The Framework is slightly marred by the incursion of cliché and jargon, mainly in the introductory section. The Glossary at the end unfortunately contains some silliness: "benchmark: specify what students should know and be able to do"; "understanding: Power to understand. . . ." On the positive side, the definition of energy is correct if a bit overbroad. Biological evolution is discussed explicitly and appropriately, especially in the upper grades. It does not, however, take its proper place as the central organizing principle of the life sciences. The evolution of the universe, the solar system, and the earth are well set forth. All in all, a carefully written and useful document.
Louisiana
Maine's very long Curriculum Framework for Mathematics and Science96 contains two sections relevant to the present study. Section I is an 11-page introduction. Section II, Curriculum Standards, is 91 pages long, but most of it is concerned with extensive statements of principles. The matter of main interest here--content--comprises 17 pages. Maine takes the mixed essay/list approach of prefacing each list of content standards with a short integrative essay. It is relatively easy to follow structural strands through the standards, which are wellorganized and suited to their grade levels. This is especially true of the lifescience standards. However, the content standards are not very specific, especially in physics. There are some weaknesses. Energy is never properly defined, though it appears as a main theme. Some of the standards are much too vague to be useful. For example,
Maine
The Massachusetts Science & Technology Curriculum Framework99 has an unusually detailed Learning Standard concerning the development of the modes of student learning over the grades. Unfortunately, some of the subjectspecific material is garbled. In the following quotations from the Framework, the italicized passages are examples of how the student might demonstrate the preceding skill.
Twelfth graders study . . . the causes of electron movement to produce light . . . and the uses of the electromagnetic spectrum and namometer [sic], e.g., redshift or using lasers to study seismological activity.100 There is some elegant material, as well. The following conceptually excellent example is unfortunately couched in clumsy language:
Explore and describe that [sic] the mass of a closed system is conserved. For example, if a wet nail is put in a jar and the lid closed, the nail will rust (oxidize) and increase in mass but the total mass in the contents of the jar will not.102 Massachusetts has adopted the view that the sciences should be taught in a unified manner, at least through grade 10. I am inclined to agree with this approach in principle, but it is fraught with difficulties that are apparent in the Framework. There is much discussion of the need for interdisciplinary cooperation among teachers of complementary backgrounds, as is of course desirable. Unfortunately, things tend to get fuzzy when the details are addressed. One grade 8-12 school, for example, chose to exploit its coastal location by exploring the sciences from a maritime point of view. The school found that the weather, in particular, furnished a fruitful field of interaction. But one teacher, recording her experiences, seems to have discovered that her newfound skills in using the Internet allowed her to collect large amounts of weather data and to use her knowledge to make weather predictions. All of this is very well, but it does not really address the issue of learning the basic sciences that truly underlie meteorology. One might have wished, for example, that she had spent more time learning about the gas laws, about the adiabatic lapse rate and its effect on precipitation, or about the role of the Coriolis force in creating cyclonic systems. The exercise in data gathering and predicting on the basis of empirical experience is fine as far as it goes, but in the upper grades one wants to see much more probing into basic theory as the students' level of sophistication rises above the pure datagathering stage.
Massachusetts
The Mississippi Science Framework103 is divided into two major sections. The first lists competencies gradebygrade through grade 8, with a laudable incrementation of sophistication with increasing age. Each grade lists roughly a dozen competencies, which are expanded upon and exemplified in the second, longer section entitled "Course Outlines." Unfortunately, the competencies are in the form of a laundry list that fails to suggest either any connectedness among the ideas of science or any theoretical foundation. This chaos is exacerbated by the fact that Mississippi schools offer no fewer than 19 high schoollevel science courseseight in the life sciences, seven in the physical sciences, two in environmental sciences, one in geology, and one in aerospace studies. Many of the courses, moreover, are severely flawed; some are essentially worthless. Chemistry I, Chemistry II, and Organic Chemistry are all offered, but not one mention is made of either mass or energy conservation. The nine lifescience courses are innocent of any organizing principles. Not only is evolution never mentioned, but there is hardly a hint as to the basis for the diversity of life or its history. The astronomy course is purely descriptive and devoted mainly to the solar system and the classical constellations; no attempt is made to deal with cosmological, stellar, or even solarsystem evolution. The only astronomers mentioned are Ptolemy, Copernicus, Kepler, and Newton, and the only physical laws that warrant even a passing glance are Newton's laws of motion and of universal gravitation. The presentation is essentially eighteenthcentury. There is little of the astronomical progress of the nineteenth century, and the only twentiethcentury technique even mentioned in passing is radioastronomy. The organizing principles of geology are treated only marginally better. The single reference is a timid "Describe the theories or hypotheses associated with plate tectonics, continental drift, and earthquakes"104 [emphasis added]. This is followed by another hint: "Describe the methods and tools used in dating rocks and fossils." Such denigration of the firmly established theory of plate tectonics is unacceptable in teaching science.
Mississippi
The Missouri Standards 105 laudably stress the importance of written communication at every level. In the overall "ShowMe Standards," Goal 2.1 states, "Students will demonstrate . . . across all content areas the ability to plan and make written, oral, and visual presentations for a variety of purposes and audiences."106 This is followed, in the "Communication Arts" standards, by Standard CA1: "Students . . . will acquire . . . knowledge of and proficiency in speaking and writing standard English (including grammar, usage, punctuation, spelling, capitalization)." It would be better, of course, if these principles were elaborated upon in the detailed specifications that follow. An introductory essay clearly outlines the logical and theoretical framework in which the specific goals of science learning are couched. Though it suffers somewhat from cliché and jargon ("moving into the 21st century," "mindson, handson") it ably sets forth the rationales, methods, and goals of science. In parallel columns, specifications are given for "What All Students Should Know," "What All Students Should Be Able to Do," and "Sample Learning Activities." The connections among these three are well thought out, and the examples, in particular, are apposite. Too frequently, however, the document suffers from vagueness and a tendency to skip over things. One quotation will demonstrate both of these weaknesses. In grades 58,
. . . all students should know that various statistical procedures are used to determine characteristics of sets of data as well as to determine the validity of experimental results. Sample learning activity: Use computer software to analyze data from a class experiment using various statistical procedures.107 Now, "a class experiment" and "various statistical procedures" are far too vague to be useful. What characteristics must a class experiment have to make it amenable to a statistical procedure? Which one? Are middleschool students in a position to decide which one (or more) is appropriate? Worse, however, is the approach. The people who wrote the computer software doubtless knew a great deal about the theory that underlies the procedures embodied in their software. But the student is put in a position where he knows less than the computer does! This merely adds to the many influences that encourage young people to be dependent on technology they do not understand. Other Sample Learning Activities are also questionable. How are grade 58 students to "design and construct a planetarium," and how will that help them to understand that "the universe is so large that its distances are expressed in special units"? And, granted that students should know that "the force of gravity determines the orbital patterns [sic] of celestial objects," how are they to confirm this knowledge if they "use ball bearings with different strengths of magnets to simulate planetary orbit paths"?108 Anybody who actually tries this is in for a big surprise! The fundamentals of the physical and life sciences are generally well presented, in spite of the weakness of the sample activities. In the astronomical and geological sections, there could be more stress on the fundamentals.
Missouri
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