OVERVIEW

In the coming decades, science literacy may well be the defining factor for our success as individuals and as a nation. Indeed, the United States' global competitiveness rests firmly on its ability to educate a workforce capable of generating and coping with rapid technological changes.

In order to adapt, each of us will need to be scientifically literate, not to become scientists, but rather to be able to act as responsible citizens and participate fully in a technology- driven age.

We look to the school system to insure that our children receive the training in science they will need, and we look to our children's teachers to instill in them the knowledge, work habits and attitudes they will carry with them into adulthood. Policy experts tell us that however important science is for us today, it will be even more important for the next generation. But, just how do we -- students, parents, teachers, administrators, and employers -- view science and its importance? How well are we preparing the next generation in science? Are today's students developing the science literacy skills, such as critical thinking, problem-solving and teamworking, that they will need later on? And, are our teachers up to the task of teaching science?

The Current State of K-12 Science Education Reform

America's education system is currently involved in myriad efforts to strengthen science teaching at all levels, from elementary school through college. These efforts have arisen out of the realization that after the last great reform effort in science education -- the so-called post-Sputnik era of the late 1950's and early 1960's -- pre-college science education languished, and many of the improvements of that era lapsed or were abandoned.

Fresh concerns about America's science education performance have come from a series of national commissions and studies over the last decade. Reports like 1983's A Nation At Risk have criticized this neglect and strongly urged a new emphasis on science and mathematics education. Reinforcing these criticisms are often troubling results from periodic national tests of our children's science knowledge, and from international studies comparing their science ability with that of children from other developed and developing nations.

Scientists, business leaders, and educators now agree that more effort should be placed on K-12 science education, with increased emphasis at the elementary school level. They concur that the skills and techniques of pre-college science teachers should be strengthened and expanded, and that science teaching resources, including laboratory equipment and information technologies, should be renewed and improved. Most importantly, they want the teaching of science itself to move from fact-intensive, textbook-based, lecture-driven science to idea-intensive, experiment-based science learning through project teamwork that is overseen and orchestrated by a skilled professional science teacher well schooled in and comfortable with science. This shift in approach is often called hands-on, inquiry-based science education, and it is described by the National Research Council's National Science Education Standards as follows:

• Student inquiry in the science classroom encompasses a range of activities. Some activities provide a basis for observation, data collection, reflection, and analysis of firsthand events and phenomena. Other activities encourage the critical analysis of secondary sources -- including media, books, and journals in a library.

• In successful science classrooms, teachers and students collaborate in the pursuit of ideas, and students quite often initiate new activities related to an inquiry. Students formulate questions and devise ways to answer them, they collect data and decide how to represent it, organize data to generate knowledge, and they test the reliability of the knowledge they have generated. As they proceed, students explain and justify their work to themselves and to one another, learn to cope with problems, such as the limitations of equipment, and react to challenges posed by the teacher and by classmates. Students assess the efficacy of their efforts -- they evaluate the data they have collected, re-examining or collecting more if necessary, and making statements about the generalizability of their findings. They plan and make presentations to the rest of the class about their work and accept and react to the constructive criticism of others.

• At all stages of inquiry, teachers guide, focus, challenge, and encourage student learning. Successful teachers are skilled observers of students, as well as knowledgeable about science and how it is learned. Teachers match their actions to the particular needs of the students, deciding when and how to guide -- when to demand more rigorous grappling by the students, when to provide information, when to provide particular tools, and when to connect students with other sources.

• In the science classroom envisioned by the Standards, effective teachers continually create opportunities that challenge students and promote inquiry by asking questions.

Standards, p. 35.

A Prescription for Strong Science Education

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 are 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.
  
  
• 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.