Reprinted here with
permission from Redesigning the Science
Curriculum. Colorado Springs, Colorado:
Biological Sciences Curriculum Study, 1995.
Edited by Rodger W. Bybee and Joseph D.
McInerney.
Science Curriculum Reform in the United
States
by Rodger W. Bybee
Support for reform is unprecedented in the
history of American education. By early 1990s,
more than 300 reports admonished those within the
educational system to reform science education.
Depending on the group publishing the report, the
recommendations for education programs emphasized
issues, such as updated scientific and
technologic knowledge, application of
contemporary learning theory and teaching
strategies, improved approaches to achieve
equity, and better preparation of citizens for
the workplace.
In this chapter, I present differences between
the contemporary reform of science curriculum and
the reform that occurred in the 1950s and 1960s.
Then, I describe several important curriculum
frameworks that science educators are using for
the design of curriculum. Finally, I address a
number of important issues in the reform of
science curriculum in the United States.
Different Perspectives on Science
Curriculum Reform
From the perspective of science curriculum,
significant differences exist between the 1960s
and 1990s reforms. The 1960s reform began at the
secondary level and progressed to the elementary
level. In the 1990s, reports have generally
addressed all levels, K-12, but the specific
curriculum reform began at the elementary school
level and progressed to middle-level education
and is now focused on the high school level. The
impetus for this sequential reform was initiated
in the late 1980s by funding from the National
Science Foundation (NSF) for new elementary and
middle school programs. Policy-level reports also
supported the elementary school to middle school
to high school sequence of reform (Bybee et al.,
1989, 1990; Champagne, Loucks-Horsley, Kuerbis,
& Raizen, 1991). School science programs
structured from the top down, literally from 12th
grade physics to elementary programs, are quite
different from school science programs that are
structured from the elementary school to high
school.
There is a second difference. In the 1980s and
1990s, there are fewer curriculum projects at the
national level. Reform efforts are being
initiated through state-level frameworks and many
new science curricula are being completed through
local development. Such efforts have the
advantage of higher levels of implementation and
the disadvantage of lower levels of real program
reform; namely, the incorporation of new
perspectives on science and technology, learning
theory, and program design. The latter results
from a lack of time and money to develop new
materials and, subsequently, in the end, school
districts adopt textbooks. Staff development
programs to update teachers in science and
technology content and innovative strategies are
not implemented. If this situation is viewed
nationally, the result could well be a low level
of reform in both quantity and quality.
A final difference is the influence of
national standards and benchmarks. National
standards should provide significant impetus for
reform as well as goals that should function as
coordinators and regulators. I address national
standards for science education in some detail
later in this chapter, and along with colleagues,
in the next chapter.
Frameworks for Science Curriculum
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, several
frameworks for curriculum significantly
influenced state and local reform of school
science programs. Those frameworks include the
American Association for the Advancement of
Science (AAAS) 1989 report Science for All
Americans and the subsequent publication in
1993 of Benchmarks for Scientific Literacy;
the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA)
1989 project "Scope, Sequence, and
Coordination;" The National Center for
Improving Science Education (NCISE) reports on
middle-level education (Bybee et al., 1990a,
1990b, 1990c) and secondary education (Champagne,
Loucks-Horsley, Kuerbis, & Raizen, 1991); and
the National Science Education Standards
Project.
Science for All Americans
In the 1980s, F. James Rutherford established
Project 2061 at AAAS. He designed Project 2061 to
take a long-term, large-scale view of education
reform in the sciences. The reform of science
education developed by Project 2061 is based on
the goal of scientific literacy. The core of Science
for All Americans consists of recommendations
by a distinguished group of scientists and
educators about what understandings and habits of
mind are essential for all citizens in a
scientifically literate society. Scientific
literacy, which embraces science, mathematics,
and technology, is a central goal of science
education. Yet, general scientific literacy
eludes U. S. society. In preparing its
recommendations, Project 2061 staff used the
reports of five independent scientific panels. In
addition, Project 2061 staff sought the advice of
a large and diverse array of consultants and
reviewers--scientists, engineers, mathematicians,
historians, and educators. The process took more
than three years, involved hundreds of
individuals, and culminated in publication of Science
for All Americans (AAAS, 1989) and the
clarification of scientific literacy. Thus, its
recommendations are presented in the form of
basic learning goals for American students. A
premise of Project 2061 is that the schools do
not need to teach more, they should teach less so
that content can be taught better. So, its
recommendations address the basic dimensions of
scientific literacy, which are being familiar
with the natural world and recognizing its
diversity and its unity; understanding concepts
and principles of science; being aware of some of
the ways in which science, mathematics, and
technology depend upon one another; knowing that
science, mathematics, and technology are human
enterprises and knowing about their strengths and
limitations; developing a capacity for scientific
ways of thinking; and using scientific knowledge
and ways of thinking for individuals and social
purposes.
Science for All Americans covers an
array of topics. Many already are common in
school curricula (for example, the structure of
matter, the basic functions of cells, prevention
of disease, communications technology, and
different uses of numbers). However, the
treatment of such topics differs from traditional
approaches in two ways. One difference is that
boundaries between traditional subject-matter
categories are softened, and connections are
emphasized through the use of important
conceptual themes, such as systems, evolution,
cycles, and energy. Transformations of energy,
for example, occur in physical, biological, and
technological systems; and evolutionary change
appears in stars, organisms, and societies. A
second difference is that the amount of detail
that students are expected to learn is less than
in traditional science, mathematics, and
technology courses. Key concepts and thinking
skills are emphasized instead of specialized
vocabulary and memorized procedures. The ideas
not only make sense at a simple level but also
provide a lasting foundation for learning more
science. Details are treated as a means of
enhancing, not guaranteeing, students'
understanding of a general idea.
Recommendations in Science for All
Americans include topics not common in school
curricula. Among those topics are the nature of
the scientific enterprise and how science,
mathematics, and technology relate to one another
and to the social system in general. The report
also calls for understanding something of the
history of science and technology.
Project 2061 also has released the draft
document Benchmarks for Scientific Literacy,
Part I: Achieving Science Literacy (1993).
Based on Science for All Americans, the
benchmarks consist of specific goals and
objectives for science curriculum. Many local
school districts and some national organizations
began using the benchmarks for different models
of science curriculum. [check against original]
Scope, Sequence, and Coordination
A second approach to the reform of secondary
school science has been suggested by Bill
Aldridge (1989). In an analysis of school
programs, Aldridge found deficiencies related to
the scope, sequence, and coordination of
programs. The deficiencies were revealed in a
comparison with science programs in other
countries, specifically the Commonwealth of
Independent States and the People's Republic of
China.
The "Project on Scope, Sequence, and
Coordination of Secondary School Science" is
an effort to restructure science teaching
primarily at the secondary school level. The
project calls for elimination of the tracking of
students, recommends that all students study
science every year for six years, and advocates
the study of science as carefully sequenced,
well-coordinated instruction in physics,
chemistry, biology, and earth and space science.
As opposed to the traditional curriculum in which
science is taught in year-long and separate
disciplines, referred to as the "layer-cake
approach," the NSTA project provides for
spacing the study of each of the sciences during
several years. Research on the spacing effect
indicates that students can learn and retain new
material better if they study it in spaced
intervals rather than all at once. In this way,
students can revisit a concept at successively
higher levels of abstraction (see table 1).
The scope, sequence, and coordination reform
effort also uses appropriate sequencing of
instruction, taking into account how students
learn. In science, understanding develops from
concrete experiences with a phenomenon before it
is given a name or a symbol. Students need
experience with a concept in several different
contexts before it becomes part of their mental
repertoire. With prior hands-on experience,
students can come to understand important
concepts and processes of science. The practical
components of this instruction should begin in
the seventh grade with issues and phenomena of
concern to students at a personal level and then
progress toward a more encompassing scope in the
upper grades. As they mature, students are able
to generalize from concrete, direct experiences
to more abstract and broader theoretical
thinking. With a sequenced approach, students
should no longer be expected to memorize facts
and information. With practical applications,
science should make sense and have meaning.
View Table 1. (19k)
The third component of the scope, sequence,
and coordination project is the coordination of
science concepts and topics. Earth and space
science, biology, chemistry, and physics have
significant features and processes in common.
Coordination among these disciplines leads to
awareness of the interdependence of the sciences
and how the disciplines form a body of knowledge.
Seeing a concept, law, or principle in the
context of two or three different subjects helps
establish it firmly in the student's mind.
At first, students are introduced more
intensively to the descriptive and
phenomenological aspects of the sciences. The
most abstract and theoretical aspects are
emphasized in the later years. Empirical and
semi-quantitative treatments are emphasized in
the middle years. Computers and technology and
practical applications are integrated directly
into each course. Most important, students would
be taught science in a way they would be able to
understand and apply it--whether as scientists or
citizens.
National Center for Improving Science
Education
Development of local school science programs
can be greatly enhanced by frameworks for
curriculum, assessment, and staff development,
such as those produced by the National Center for
Improving Science Education (NCISE) for the
elementary school (Bybee, et al., 1989;
Loucks-Horsley, 1989; Raizen, 1989), the middle
school (Bybee et al., 1990a, 1990b, 1990c;
Loucks-Horsley, 1990; Raizen et al., 1990), and
for the secondary level (Champagne,
Loucks-Horsley, Kuerbis, & Raizen, 1991).
The curriculum and instruction frameworks for
middle school and high school extend the center's
proposed framework for the elementary years
(Bybee et al., 1989). Treatments of the
recommended organizing concepts, however, are
more complex. The organizing concepts detailed in
the technical report for middle schools include
cause and effect, change and conservation,
diversity and variation, energy and matter,
evolution and equilibrium, models and theories,
probability and prediction, structure and
function, systems and interaction, and time and
scale. The concepts need not be independent units
of study; they should at least, however, link
subjects, topics, and disciplines. Curriculum
emphases should include scientific habits of
mind, such as willingness to modify explanations,
cooperation in answering questions and solving
problems, respect for reasons, reliance on data,
and skepticism. Students also should develop
skills for answering questions and solving
problems, making decisions, and taking action.
Content in the program should relate to the life
and world of the student and provide a context
for presenting new knowledge, skills, and
attitudes. The focus of curriculum and
instruction should be on depth of study, not
breadth of topics.
National Science Education Standards
Project
In this section, I provide a brief overview of
the National Science Education Standards.
The next chapter presents more details of the
content, teaching, assessment, program, and
systems standards.
National Science Education Standards
will provide the qualitative criteria and
framework for judging science programs (content,
teaching, and assessment) and the policies
necessary to support them. The standards will
define the understanding of science that all
students, without regard to background, future
aspirations, or prior interest in science, should
develop; present criteria for judging science
education content and programs at the K-4, 5-8,
and 9-12 levels, including learning goals, design
features, instructional approaches, and
assessment characteristics; include all natural
sciences and their interrelationships, as well as
the natural science connections with technology,
science- and technology-related social
challenges, and the history and nature of
science; include standards for the preparation
and continuing professional development of
teachers, including resources needed to enable
teachers to meet the learning goals; propose a
long-term vision for science education, some
elements of which can be incorporated almost
immediately in most places, others of which will
require substantial changes in the structure,
roles, organization, and context of school
learning before they can be implemented; provide
criteria for judging models, benchmarks,
frameworks, curricula, and learning experiences
developed under the guidelines of ongoing
national projects, or under state frameworks, or
local district, school or teacher-designed
initiatives; and provide criteria for judging
teaching, the provision of opportunities to learn
valued science (including such resources as
instructional materials, educational
technologies, and assessment methods), and
science education programs at all levels.
Some Issues in the Reform of Science
Education
Writing reports about the reform of education
and reforming education are two very different
activities. The former requires that a small
group agree on a set of ideas and express those
ideas clearly and with adequate justification.
The latter requires that millions of school
personnel in thousands of autonomous school
districts change. Changes in science curriculum
in schools represent smaller instances of the
latter. In order for changes to occur in science
education, school personnel must change. And, the
most important factors influencing the
possibility of changing school personnel are the
programs and practices currently in place and
supported by the school system.
Scientific and technological literacy is the
main purpose of science education in K-12. This
purpose is for all students, not just those
individuals destined for careers in science and
engineering. The curriculum for science education
is inadequate to the challenge of achieving
scientific and technological literacy by 2000.
And many are urging a review of school personnel
and science programs. Increasing the scientific
and technological literacy of students requires
several fundamental changes in science curricula.
First, the amount of information presented must
be replaced by key conceptual schemes that
students learn in some depth. Second, the rigid
disciplinary boundaries of earth science,
biology, chemistry, and physics should be
softened and greater emphasis placed on
connections among the sciences and among
disciplines generally thought of as outside of
school science, such as technology, mathematics,
ethics, and social situations (Confrey, 1990;
Newmann, 1988).
Achieving the goal of scientific and
technological literacy requires more than
understanding concepts and processes of science
and technology. Indeed, there is some need for
citizens to understand science and technology as
an integral part of our society. That is, science
and technology as enterprises that shape, and are
shaped by, human thought and social actions. As
mentioned earlier, aspects of this theme are
discussed as STS (Bybee, 1987). However, the
prevailing approach to STS is to focus on
science-related social problems, such as
environmental pollution, resource use, and
population growth. My argument expands the STS
theme to include some understanding of the nature
and history of science and technology. There is
recent and substantial support for this
recommendation, though few curriculum materials.
Including the nature and history of science and
technology provides opportunities to focus on
topics that soften disciplinary boundaries and
establish connections between science and other
domains such as social studies (Bybee et al.,
1992).
The substantial body of research on learning
should be the basis for making instruction more
effective. This research suggests that students
learn by constructing their own meaning from
experiences (Driver & Oldham, 1986; Sachse,
1989; Watson & Konicek, 1990). A
constructivist approach requires very different
science curricula and methods of science
instruction.
Not unrelated to the implications of research
or learning theory is the age-old theme that
science teaching should consist of experiences
that exemplify the spirit, character, and nature
of science and technology. Students should begin
study with questions about the natural world
(science) and problems about how human beings
adapt to their environments (technology). They
should be actively involved in the process of
inquiry and problem solving. They should have
opportunities to present their explanations for
phenomena and solutions to problems and to
compare their explanations and solutions to those
concepts of science and technology. They should
have a chance to apply their understandings in
new situations. In short, the inquiry-oriented
laboratories are infrequent experiences for
students, but they should be a central part of
their experience in science education. Extensive
use of inquiry is consistent with my other
recommendations, and it has widespread support
(Costenson & Lawson, 1986).
During the 1990s, the issue of equity must be
addressed in science programs and by school
personnel. For the past several decades, science
educators at all levels have discussed the
importance of changing science programs to
enhance opportunities for historically
underrepresented groups. Calls for scientific and
technological literacy assume the inclusion of
all Americans. Other justifications--even if they
are not needed for this position--include the
supply of future scientists and engineers,
changing demographics, and prerequisites for
work. Research results, curricula
recommendations, and practical suggestions are
available to those developing science curricula
(Atwater, 1986, 1989; Gardner, Mason, &
Matyas, 1989; Linn & Hyde, 1989; Malcom,
1990; Oakes & The Rand Corporation, 1990).
The science curriculum in middle schools is a
special concern. Numerous reports and commissions
address the need for educational reform for
elementary and high school science education, but
few have specifically recognized the emergence of
middle schools in the 1980s. Notable exceptions
include the Carnegie Corporation (1989) report Turning
Points: Preparing Youth for the 21st Century,
the California State Department of Education
(1987) report Caught in the Middle, the
Maine Department of Educational and Cultural
Services (1988) report Schools in the Middle,
and the National Association of Secondary School
Principals (1985) report An Agenda for
Excellence at the Middle Level. The movement
toward implementing middle schools, and phasing
out junior high schools, is a significant trend
in American education. Yet, thus far, the middle
school reform has not thoroughly addressed the
particular issues of subject-matter
disciplines--in this case, science and
technology. The contemporary reform must not
allow the science education of early adolescents
to be overlooked or assumed to be part of either
the elementary school or secondary school
curriculum.
Improving curriculum and instruction will be a
hollow gesture without concomitant changes in
assessment at all levels, from the local
classroom to the National Assessment of
Educational Progress (NAEP). In general, the
changes in assessment practices must reflect the
changes described earlier for curriculum and
instruction. Incongruities, such as teaching
fewer concepts in greater depth but testing for
numerous facts in fine detail, will undermine the
reform of science education. New forms of
assessment are available and being recommended by
researchers, policymakers, and practitioners
(Frederiksen & Collins, 1989; Murnane &
Raizen, 1988; Roueche, Sorensen, & Roueche,
1988; Shavelson, Carey, & Webb, 1990).
Reform of science education must be viewed as
part of the general reform of education.
Approaching the improvement of science education
by changing textbooks, buying new computers, or
adding a new course simply will not work.
Fortunately, widespread educational reform, which
includes science education, is under way. Science
educators must view reform, holistically and
systemically as the reconstruction of science
education for K-12 and include all courses and
students, a staff development program, reform of
science teacher preparation, and support from
school administrators. This comprehensive or
systemic recommendation is based on the research
on implementation (Fullan, 1982; Hall, 1989) and
research literature on school change and
restructuring (Kloosterman, Matkin, & Ault,
1988; Roberts & Chastko, 1990; Tobin &
Espinet, 1980; Yeany & Padilla, 1986).
Conclusion
Looking toward 2000 leaves science educators
viewing a system already in the process of
reform. Though distinctly different from earlier
reforms, this reform holds great promise of
improving the goals of scientific and
technological literacy for all citizens.
