When state leaders and national partners in the development of the Next Generation Science Standards met to consider implementation strategies, states and school districts wanted to know which materials were aligned to the new standards. The answer from the developers was short but not sweet: You won't find much now, and it's going to…

Robertson discusses the "perceived dichotomy" that permeates science teaching: teachers can either stress inquiry learning with lots of hands-on experiences or stress content knowledge and swap hands-on inquiry for direct instruction. Although a curriculum of unstructured hands-on science activities leads to shallow content knowledge, it is…

Responses of 165 elementary school principals in the state of Washington were analyzed to determine sources through which principals learn of curricular innovations in science and social studies. (GW)

The author reviews trends in the curriculum field, pointing out how it suffers from "ahistoricism." Schools must be responsible for countering cycles and fashions. Curriculum reform efforts should be an attempt to solve problems based on knowledge from previous experience. (MD)

Brief descriptions and addresses are provided for the following: four handbooks for elementary principals on science programs, a study on women in science, a renewal of National Science Foundation funding for precollege-level science teaching projects, and a report outlining proposals for educational improvement in science. (TE)

Future science curricula should recognize the interaction of science, technology, and society and should give students the skills for learning and applying scientific knowledge, an awareness of ethics and values in science, and a future perspective. The organization of science courses should vary with the type of learning desired. (Author/RW)

Reviews some of the more important components in the curriculum development process that have evolved over 30 years at the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study. Outlines the process involved in the revision and restructuring of the tenth-grade biology curriculum. Includes references. (MD)

The need for a systematized curriculum of environmental education is explored as it relates to student learning experience. (RK)

For many, the dominant model of curriculum development in science includes generating a topic, clarifying science content, identifying activities associated with the topic, and figuring out an assessment. Unfortunately, this approach tends to overemphasize activities and underemphasize mastery of science concepts and the process of scientific…

The Applications in Biology/Chemistry (ABC) curriculum is a real-world approach designed for the middle 50% of secondary students who may not learn in a predominantly abstract way. Stressing contextual and cooperative learning, ABC features 10 laboratory exercises and other hands-on, problem-solving activities involving visits to job sites and…

Considers the development of science curricula from World War II and how the emphasis has changed to conceptualization of science knowledge in order to encourage intellectual activity. As well, this change has led to an improved climate for curriculum innovation. (Author/RK)

Science education should be effective as "Science for All" but the science curriculums introduced in the 1960s and 1970s were inadequate and only served a science "elite" while teaching the majority of students that science was not for them. Science must be reexamined and curriculum developers should emphasize exciting examples and everyday…