Science Standards: An Update
Alan Cromer
Department of Physics, Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts
02115
cromer@neu.edu
http://www.dac.neu/physics/a.cromer/Home.html
The current Standard-Writing movement began in the late 80s as part of a national effort to reform science education. Major national organizations, such as the National Academy of Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the National Science
Teachers Association, mounted independent efforts to try to be the voice of K-12 science
education the United States. The document published by the National Academy, entitled National
Science Education Standards (National Research Council, 1996), has probably had the most
direct influence on state efforts to write their own standards. Although its final version was
published only in 1996, many states followed earlier drafts in writing their own standards.
The intent of NSES, it is own words, is "Science standards for all students. The phrase embodies
both excellence and equity. The Standards apply to all students, regardless of age, gender,
cultural or ethnic background, disabilities, aspirations, or interest and motivation in science." This
highly political agenda, I will argue, requires a redefinition of science that borders on antiscience.
Indeed, in its first printing in 1992 of a document discussing the intellectual foundations of the
standards, it was stated that the standards would reflect the "postmodernist view of science" that
"questions the objectivity of observations and the truth of scientific knowledge." This was said to
be the opposite of logical positivism, which it disparaged as being "characterized by arguments for
the objectivity of scientific observations and the truth of scientific knowledge (National Research
Council, 1992; National Science Teachers Association, 1993)." After protest from the scientific
community, this statement was removed from later printings of the document, and the final 1996
version of NSES has a more moderate statement of the nature of science.
Nevertheless, NSES is a radical document. In a speech given in 1996, Bruce Alberts, a
distinguished scientist and president of the National Academy of Sciences, was very open on this
point:
This is a revolutionary document . . . All those who have kids in school recognize that we're far from anything like this. . . . its not like the post-Sputnik revolution. This is science for everybody. This is to make the country vital and competitive, not to produce scientists. And
[it's] not the science that we're now learning in textbooks as word memorization. [It's not] the
science that we're testing in SAT2 exams. . . . It's science as inquiry based learning. And that's a
major revolution. (Alberts, 1996)
Table 1 shows how NSES divides the content of science into seven categories, burying basic science in a stew of peripheral matters. Jim Shea, the editor of the Journal of Geoscience Education, writes in an editorial that this categorization "is virtually guaranteed to produce
misconceptions, fragmentation, and fog rather than clarity and comprehension (Shea, 1998)."
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Table 1 NSES Science Content Categories
* Science as Inquiry
* Physical Science
* Life Science
* Earth and Space Science
* Science and Technology
* Science in Personal and Social Perspectives
* History and Nature of Science
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Science as inquiry presents a special problem. NSES says: "Inquiry into authentic questions
generated from student experiences is the central strategy for teaching science. Teachers focus
inquiry predominantly on real phenomena . . ." And also: "Although the Standards emphasize
inquiry, this should not be interpreted as recommending a single approach to science teaching."
This isn't as balanced as it appears, however, because NSES doesn't mean by "inquiry" what a scientist might think it means. NSES says: "Conducting hands-on science activities does not guarantee inquiry, nor is reading about science incompatible with inquiry." In his speech, Alberts complains of an eighth grader in a private school who was turned off science because he had to memorize the parts of a worm. Then, in his next breath, Alberts speaks of schools "vitalizing" interest in the world around us. "It's exciting. The world's a wonderful place to investigate." Yes it is. It's the most interesting place I know. And worms are an important part of it. The study of their anatomy--usually through dissection--would seem to be totally aligned with NSES's own
Grade 5-8 Life Science Standard: Structure and Function in Living Systems. But it isn't, because
technical vocabulary and specialized knowledge have been as thoroughly eliminated by the NSES
revolutionaries as they were by the Pol Pot revolutionaries. The NSES Revolution is about
science for the least engaged students, not the most engaged.
Inquiry, in the sense understood by NSES, must be inquiry "into authentic questions generated
from student experiences." It thus is very different from traditional laboratory-based science, in
which students learn to systematically use methods and equipment appropriate to ends determined
by the curriculum.
In a hypothetical example called "Funny Water," students begin "a unit that would include the development of students' understanding of the characteristic properties of substances such as boiling points, melting points, solubility, and density." The unit begins with students observing and commenting on a layered column of different colored liquids. All comments are accepted, from "It's pretty." to "The atoms in some are heavier than the ones in others." The students are then given the liquids in small cylinders and asked to find out what they can about them. No systematic method of investigation is taught, nothing is said about density as the ratio of mass to volume, of buoyancy as a force, of forces in equilibrium, of reasoning from principles. Instead, as the teacher demonstrates more confusing phenomena, students are encouraged to "write down any ideas they had about what was happening." Then it is on to boiling points.
Table 2 reproduces in its entirety Table 6.1 of NSES on Science as Inquiry Standards. Most
notable is the absence of any characterization of how the skills and knowledge of scientific inquiry
are to be developed progressively over 13 years of study. The Massachusetts Science and
Technology Curriculum Framework, which is based on NSES, is honest about the nonscientific
character of inquiry: "Before there was science or technology, there was inquiry." Inquiry to
educators includes activities that most scientists would consider prescience, and even antiscience.
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Table 2 Science As Inquiry Standards (NSES Table 6.1)
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LEVELS K-4
* Abilities necessary to do scientific inquiry
* Understanding about scientific inquiry
LEVELS 5-8
* Abilities necessary to do scientific inquiry
* Understanding about scientific inquiry
LEVELS 9-12
* Abilities necessary to do scientific inquiry
* Understanding about scientific inquiry
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As another example of inquiry, the Massachusetts Science and Technology Curriculum
Framework (Massachusetts Department of Education, 1995) outlines a unit entitled "How Do
Objects Fly?" "Middle school students' study of flight begins with building and informally testing
different types of gliders. Students explore features that make flight possible . . . " The students
then go on to pursue further inquiries based on their own questions, such as "What impact does
air traffic have on people and organisms in communities near an airport?"
The difference between this "inquiry" and a scientific investigation of flight couldn't be starker.
The distinctions among a projectile, a glider, and powered flight are never made, or even
suggested. There is no inquiry into lift, or Bernoulli's principle. Nothing about these critical
matters can be learned from "informally testing different types of gliders." Middle school students
can't make any meaningful inquiry into the impact of air traffic; all they can do is read about
complaints of abutters and environmentalists. Who decides that this sort of reading is compatible
with inquiry in science, but that structured experiments on pressure and Bernoulli's principle are
not? What contribution does reading about complaints of airplane noise make to a student¹s
understanding of how airplanes fly? It merely allows a social science exercise to disguise as a
science exercise. This is the true meaning of "real world phenomena."
NSES recognizes three major divisions of science and gives specific standards for each. Table 3
shows the Physical Science Standards Grades 5-8, and Table 4 shows the Earth and Space
Science Standards Grades 5-8.
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Table 3 NSES Physical Science Content Standard (Grades 5-8
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Properties and changes of properties in matter
A substance has characteristic properties, . . .
Substances react chemically in characteristic ways . . .
Chemical elements do not break down during normal laboratory reactions
. . .
Motions and forces
The motion of an object can be described by its position, direction of
motion, and speed. . . .
An object that is not being subjected to a force will continue to move
at a constant speed in a straight line.
Unbalanced forces will cause changes in the speed or direction of an
object's motion.
Transfer of energy
Energy is a property of many substances and is associated with heat,
light, electricity, mechanical motion, sound, nuclei, and the nature of
a chemical. Energy is transferred in many ways.
Heat moves in predictable ways, . . .
Light interacts with matter by transmission (including refraction),
absorption, or scattering (including reflection). . . .
Electrical circuits provide a means of transferring electrical energy . In most chemical and nuclear reactions, energy is transferred into or out of a system.
The sun is a major source of energy for changes on the earth's surface.
. .
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Unfortunately, these standards, in spite of their over-arching subtitles, lack any logical coherence.
For example, refraction is included under energy transfer (Table 3). Is there to be a unit on
geometrical optics, or is refraction merely to be thrown out as an isolated concept? Are students
to express their own opinions as to why light bends, or do they do a systematic study of the
phenomenon?
Chemical reactions, nuclear reactions, and elements are included, but atoms, molecules, and atomic structure are not. How is one to talk about nuclear reactions and not discuss atoms and nuclei? All middle-school textbooks currently teach atoms and mention molecules when
discussing biology. But NSES explicitly rules against this:
It can be tempting to introduce atoms and molecules or to improve students' understanding of them . . . However, use of such terminology is premature . . . Elements and compounds can be defined operationally from their chemical characteristics, but few students can comprehend the
idea of atomic and molecular particles. (NSES p. 149)
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Table 4 NSES Earth Science Content Standard (Grades 5-8)
_______________________________________________________________________
Structure of the earth system
The solid earth is layered with a lithosphere . . . Lithosphere plates
on the scales of continents and oceans constantly move at rates of
centimeters per year . . .
Land forms are the result of a combination of constructive and
destructive forces.
Some changes in the solid earth can be described as the "rock cycle."
.
Soil consists of weathered rocks and decomposed organic material . . .
Water, which cover the majority of the earth's surface, circulates
through the crust, oceans, and atmosphere in what is known as the "water
cycle."
Water is a solvent. As it passes through the water cycle it dissolves
minerals and gases and carries them to the oceans.
The atmosphere is a mixture of nitrogen, oxygen, and trace gases that
include water vapor. . . .
Clouds, formed by the condensation of water vapor, affect weather and
climate.
Global patterns of atmospheric movement influence local weather.
Living organisms have played many roles in the earth system, . ..
Earth's history
The earth processes . . . today . . are similar to those . . . in the
past.
Fossils provide important evidence of how life and environmental
conditions have changed.
Earth in the solar system
The earth is the third planet from the sun in a system that includes
the moon, the sun, eight other planets and their moons, and smaller
objects, . . .
. . predictable motion . . . explain such phenomena as the day, the
year, phases of the moon and eclipses.
Gravity . . governs . . . the motion in the solar system.
. . . Seasons . . . due to the tilt of the earth's rotation on its axis .
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NSES is correct that students will have misconceptions at the beginning. And it is also true that many middle-school textbook give more details of atomic structure than can possibly be meaningful to most students. But the introduction of atomicity and atomic structure has to begin
somewhere. It is radical in the extreme to postpone this until high school. A Daltonian notion of
atoms and molecules can be given in seventh grade, some atomic structure developed in eighth,
and nuclear structure described in ninth. Over three years, most students will develop a "good
enough" concept of atoms.
Also missing from the middle-school standard is the topic of pressure in fluids, which is central to
many topics in both life science and Earth science. Pressure absolutely must be developed in
seventh grade if students are to have any explanatory power. This is turn requires an
understanding of forces in equilibrium, another topic that NSES omits.
The choice of topics included in NSES don't form a logically connected set of ideas. This shouldn't be surprising, since the ability to reason from principles is not itself a standard. NSES claims it is setting the criteria to judge the quality of what students know and are able to do.
But as Shea points out,
There seems to be no place in the "Standards" where it says directly and unequivocally that "students will know" anything in particular or "students will be able to do" anything; instead, what we find is the weaseling assertion that "students will develop an understanding of." .
. .
For example, the "Standards" mentions "rocks" repeatedly, but never once specifies
"sedimentary," "igneous," or "metamorphic" rocks. The word "mineral" appears only once as far
as I could determine, and not even one specific mineral is named. The word "processes" is used
many times, but, incredibly, the authors do not seem to know what processes are, because "the
presence of ozone and greenhouse gases in the atmosphere," and "cloud cover" are explicitly
identified as processes rather than conditions, whereas most geological processes aren't even
mentioned. Just for example, "crystallization," "lithification," and "metamorphism" are never
mentioned, nor are "glaciation," "percolation," "folding," "faulting," "intrusion," "extrusion," etc.,
etc., etc. The list of omissions is too long to do more than give examples here. (Shea, 1998)
Following this dismal lead, most states have undertaken the arduous task of writing their own
standards. Here we find all the errors of NSES, plus a few new ones. I'll discuss
theMassachusetts Science & Technology Framework.
Like NSES, the Framework is divided into a number of major categories, as shown in Table 5. The three technology standards comprise 25% of the 90-minute Science & Technology test now required of all all 4th, 8th, and 10th graders. This leaves 75%, or approximately 30 questions, to
cover the other four categories.
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Table 5 Massachusetts Science Content Categories
* Inquiry
* Physical Science
* Life Science
* Earth and Space Science
* The Design Process
* Understanding and Using Technology
* Science, Technology, and Human Affairs
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Table 6 summarizes the scope of the three domains of science. The three science domains contain 58 topics, many of which encompass whole fields of knowledge. Note that Massachusetts follows NSES in dividing physical science into matter, force and motion, and energy transformation, but
adds a division on the particulate model of matter. It doesn't go as far as NSES in avoiding the
topic, but doesn't go so far as dictating any particular particulate model. Any particulate model of
matter that a child can think of will do. The test, I am assured, will be on the standard model.
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Table 6 Key-word Summary of the Massachusetts Science Content Standards
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I. Physical Sciences (pp.47-48)
A. Properties of Matter
1. Measure density
2. Elements and compounds
3. Chemical change
4. Conservation of mass
5. Pressure and temperature (gas law)
B. Particulate Model of Matter
1. Atomic model
2. a. Atoms, molecules, and ions
b. Arrangement of atoms in solids, liquids, and gases
3. Conservation of atoms in chemical reactions
C. Motion and Changes in Motion
1. Force
2. Addition of forces
3. Position and speed as functions of time
D. Transformations of Energy
1. Conservation of energy
2. Heat transfer
3. Electromagnetic radiation
4. Light
5. Energy transformations
6. Electrical circuits
II. Life Sciences (pp. 62-63)
A. Characteristics of Organisms
1. Cell
2. Kingdoms
3. Animal and plant cells
4. Cell replication and growth
5. Life processes
6. Specialization of cells
7. Systems of cells
B. Diversity and Adaptation of Organisms
1. Effects of environmental changes
2. Evolution
C. Heredity, Reproduction, and Development
1. Sexual and asexual reproduction
2. Haploid and diploid cells
3. Segregation and recombination of
genes
4. Genetic variation
D. Ecosystems and Organisms
1. Interspecies dependence
2. Food chain
3. Decomposition
4. Production, consumption, and decomposition
III Earth and Space Sciences (pp.76-78)
A. Interactions and Cycles in the Earth System
1. Earth's interior
2. Heat flow and convection within the earth
3. Sedimentary, igneous, and metamorphic rocks
4. Soil
5. Water cycle
6. Shape and rotation of earth
7. Oceanography
8. Climate
9. Weather
10. Insolation
11. Pollution
12. Hydrology
13. Human affects on the environment
B. Earth's History
1. Continental drift
2. Evolution
C. Earth and Space
1. Pattern of stars
2. Telescope
3. Planetary motion
4. Solar system
5. Sun and the Milky Way
6. Galaxies in the universe
7. Moon
8. Universal gravity
9. Sun's energy on earth
IV. Technology (pp. 92-95)
A. The Design Process
B. The Nature and Impact of Technology
C. Technology Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow
D. The Tools and Machines of Technology
E. Resources of Technology
F. Technological Areas of Communication, Construction, Manufacturing,
Transportation, and Power Technologies
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The electricity standard, D6 in Table 7, shows just how much material is crammed into each of the
58 bullets. The the gas-law standard (A5) requires a sophisticated understanding of pressure, but
there is no explicit stand-alone standard on pressure itself. This sends the message that it is okay
to use scientific concepts without developing any understanding of them, as long as they have
common English names.
Both NSES and Massachusetts Framework are so deficient in their outlining of a coherent science
curriculum as to be great hinderances to the whole process. I have watched as school districts
struggle in vain in come to grips with these flawed mandates. To date, I know of know of no
program that can be said to remotely implement them.
In February, 1998, I spent three days in Los Angeles working on the first draft of the California
Science Standards. The politics of this is a long story, but parts of it are relevant here. Two
groups had submitted proposals to the California Standards Commission in response to its RFP
to write the state's science standards. One group, headed by Bonnie Brunkhorst was pro-NSES
and the other, headed by Stan Metzenberg, was anti-NSES. After a bitter dispute, both proposal
were rejected, and Brunkhorst and Metzenberg were asked to be consultants to the Commission.
Glenn Seaborg, who had been a member of Metzenberg's group, was appointed to the Standards
Commission and became chairman of its science subcommittee.
The Commission sponsored a three-day standards-writing conference in February 1998, to which Brunkhorst and Metzenberg could each invite their "experts." There was much jockeying over who could invite whommy name was blocked for a timebut in the end a combined group of pro- and anti-NSES people was assembled. My two principal goals at this conference were 1) to prevent NSES from being given special authority in our discussions, and 2) to prevent inquiry from being made a separate
component, or strand, of the standard.
There were about seven people in the physical science group, mostly university-level chemists and physicists. Although some of us had been invited by Metzenberg and some by Brunkhorst, there were no ideological divisions among us. Our first meeting began with the suggestion that we
break into three subgroups according to the NSES subdivisions of physical sciencematter, force
and motion, and energy transformations. But since motion is inseparable from energy, the group
preferred to split the topics into chemistry and physics. The chemists worked on standards related
to chemical reactions, atoms, and molecules, and the three physicists worked on the standards
related to everything else. We also decided not to get involved with promulgating over-arching
themes like "energy transformation." Instead we tried to organize the physical science standards
into teachable units, with the standards describing the essential components of the units.
Our work passed through several layers of editing and internal review by the Commission before
it was released for public comment in April 1998 (California Academic Standards Commission,
1998). Table 8 shows some excerpts from this first public draft.
Each of the seven bold-faced topic represents a unit of work. Typically, a class can cover six to
eight units in a year, so the seven physical science topics could be covered in one-third of the
three middle-school years. Earth science is similar in structure, although perhaps not as specific.
Life Science has, in my opinion, too much material at too high a level.
NSES has tried to close discussionyou either support it or else. I am hopeful that the California
science standard will open discussion on issues of substance. Are the physical science standards
too specific? Can anything less specific be the basis for state testing? Can we realistically expect
all students to learn this much science by the end of eighth grade? Is there a fundamental conflict
between "raising standards" and a "science for all" ideology? At what grade will students
interested in science be permitted to take science courses matched to their abilities and interests?
The California Draft breaks with NSES in a number of important ways. First, the Draft doesn't confuse methods and goals. It doesn't say how science is to be taught, but only what is to be learned. Inquiry is not the touted as the "the central strategy for teaching science." Second,
it doesn't confound the teaching of science with the burden of teaching sociology, history, philosophy, and technology as well. (Although I favor including history and technology in science whenever possible, I don't want to see them made a requirement. Doing so dilutes already limited resources.) Third, the Physical Science part of the Draft is organized into teachable units, with detailed descriptions of the expectations of each unit. This is very helpful for designing curricula
and allocating time. Life Science is not organized this way and the whole matter is controversial.
Defenders of NSES, including Bruce Alberts and Bonnie Brunkhorst, are actively campaigning
against the Draft precisely because student-initiated inquiry is not central to it.
______________________________________________________
Table 8 Excerpts from the First Draft of the California Science
Standards (April 1998)
Physical Science Grades 6-8
______________________________________________________
OPTICS
1. Students know that light travels in straight lines except at a
surface between media.
2. Students know how to represent the path of a light beam that is
reflected off a mirror.
3. Students know how simple lenses function in the magnifying glass,
eye, camera, telescope and microscope.
4. Students know that white light is composed of many colors.
MOTION AND GRAVITY
5. Students know how to solve problems involving distance, time and
speed; and know that velocity and force have both magnitude and
direction.
6. Students know that an object at rest has two or more forces acting on
it and know how to analyze the effects of each force separately.
7. Students know that there is a gravitational force between any two
objects, and that objects near the surface of the Earth experience a
gravitational force proportional to their mass.
8. Students know that when an object is at rest or moving with a
constant velocity the forces on it are balanced, and that any change in
velocity of an object is due to unbalanced forces.
PRESSURE
9. Students know that pressure is force per unit area.
10. Students know that the pressure in a fluid at rest increases with
depth, and the effects of pressure at any point are uniform in all
directions.
11. Students know that the Earth's atmosphere exerts a pressure that
decreases with distance above the Earth's surface.
12. Students know that pressure is used to transmit forces in hydraulic
systems.
13. Students solve problems involving pressure, force and area.
DENSITY AND BUOYANCY
ENERGY
CHEMICAL REACTIONS
PROPERTIES OF MATTER
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Yet ironically, the crowning achievement of the Draft, applauded by all
sides, is the development of a progressive Investigation and
Experimentation standard in place of the dreadful "Science as Inquiry"
of NSES (Table 2). Table 9 gives the Grades 6-8 Investigation and
Experimentation standards. This is the first state standard that
explicitly links science to mathematics. It is also the first attempt
to list explicit skills in order of increasing complexity.
In conclusion: National Science Education Standards is a radical
postmodern document that replaces focused investigation with
student-initiated inquiry in order to define a finger-painting version
of science that is accessible to all. This movement has been met
head-on by the movement to make schools accountable through statewide
testing. The logic of testing requires standards that are far more
specific than NSES supporters find acceptable. Brunkhorst has
complained that the California "draft standards have too much detailed
content and too much technical jargon at all grade spans." Yet details
and specific vocabulary are absolutely necessary if the standards are to
be the basis for statewide testing.
As we will see in Massachusetts, testing is the tail that ultimately
must wag the standards dog.
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Table 9 California Draft Standards for Investigation and
Experimentation, Grades 6-8
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* Perform all previous investigative skills [Grades K-5]
* Develop a hypothesis
* Plan and conduct a scientific investigation to test a hypothesis
* Select and use appropriate tools and technology (including
calculators, computers, balances, spring scales, microscopes, and
binoculars) to perform tests, collect data and display data
* Utilize a variety of print and electronic resources (including the
World Wide Web and CD-ROMs) to collect information as evidence as part
of a research project
* Differentiate variable and controlled parameters in a test
* Communicate the logical connection among hypothesis, science concepts,
tests conducted, data collected and conclusions drawn from the
scientific evidence
* Recognize whether evidence is consistent with a proposed explanation
* Construct appropriate graphs from data and develop quantitative
statements about the relationships between variables
* Differentiate between linear and non-linear relationships on a graph
of data
* Construct scale models, maps, and appropriate labeled diagrams to
describe scientific knowledge (e.g., motion of earth's plates and cell
structure)
* Communicate steps and results in an investigation through written
reports and verbal presentations
* Evaluate the accuracy and reproducibility of data
* Apply simple mathematical relationships to determine one quantity
given the other two (including speed = distance/time, density =
mass/volume, force = pressure x area, volume = area x height)
* Recognize the slope of the linear graph as the constant in the
relationship as y=kx and apply this to interpret graphs constructed from
data
* Use triangulation to determine the position of a point from data
* Read a topographic map, and a geologic map for evidence provided on
the maps.
* Interpret events by sequence and time from natural phenomena (e.g.
relative ages of rocks and intrusions)
* Identify changes over time in natural phenomena over time without
manipulating the phenomena ( e.g.. a tree limb , a grove of trees, a
stream, a hillslope).
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References
Alberts, Bruce. 1996. "Critical Role of Professional Development in
Science and Mathematics Reform" NISE Conference Speech.
http://teech.terc.edu/modes/lectures/_lectures/alberts_nise96.cfm
California Academic Standards Commission. 1998.
http://www.ca.gov/goldstandards/Drafts/Science/SciContents.html
Massachusetts Department of Education. 1995. Massachusetts Science and
Technology Curriculum Framework Malden, MA: Department of Education.
http://www.doe.mass.edu/doedocs/frameworks/science5.html
National Research Council. 1992. National Science Education Standards: A
Sampler. Washington: National Academy of Science.
National Research Council. 1996. National Science Education Standards.
Washington: National Academy of Science.
http://www.nap.edu/bookstore/isbn/0309053269.html
National Science Teachers Association. 1993. "Second Standards Document
Stresses Inquiry and Relevance." NSTA Reports! Feb/Mar. p. 1.
Shea, James. 1998. "More Progress (???) on Science Education Standards"
Editorial. J. of Geoscience Education. 46: 118.
______________________________________________________
Alan Cromer
Department of Physics
Northeastern University
Boston. MA 02115