Making Science Make Sense

Bayer Facts of Science Education Survey

The Bayer Facts of Science Education surveys support a clear and powerful prescription to cure the ills of a traditional American science curriculum that has become increasingly outmoded and ineffective in today's world. While none of the ingredients in this prescription is exotic or unusual, taken together, they can produce a coherent and coordinated response that can create real, lasting educational change, an approach that the National Science Foundation calls systemic science education reform. If America were to consistently adopt the following practices and policies, the participants in The Bayer Facts surveys believe that science education would become a vibrant, effective force in preparing our children for their upcoming roles as adults.

What are these specific ingredients?

• Science should be declared the "fourth R" and given equal importance, equal time, and equal teaching skill levels with the other education basics.
  
  
• Science teaching should be based on an inquiry-driven, hands-on approach that engages and motivates students, gives them the problem-solving skills and other habits of mind they need to be successful in school and work, and substitutes a working knowledge of science and its methods for rote learning of facts and laws.
  
  
• The natural appeal that science has for young children needs to be sustained and reinforced by the widest possible use of these inquiry methods from the earliest years in school on.
  
  
• In adopting inquiry-based science, schools and school districts across the country should begin by reviewing for adoption hands-on, inquiry-based science curricula that are funded by the National Science Foundation or that follow national standards, recommendations and benchmarks issued by the National Academy of Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and similar groups.
  
  
• Classroom inquiry-based science teaching and learning needs to be supported with the equipment and materials necessary for hands-on experimentation, including more widespread access to and use of technology, including computers and the Internet.
  
  
• New teachers must be better educated in science, and current teachers must receive similar continuing education and training. Teachers need to be as confident about their ability to teach science using inquiry methods as they are about teaching reading or mathematics.
  
  
• More scientists must move out of the laboratory and into the classroom to volunteer their expertise to teachers and expose students to the realities of science and science as a career option.
  
  
• Successful science education reform will require a concerted effort on the part of all stakeholders - teachers, school administrators and school boards, parents and other citizens, business and industry, and the scientific community.
  
  
• Science resources and activities should be readily available in the home, both as recreation and avocation, and to support work at home on school subjects.