Science standards: The authors respond

We appreciate the response to our Kappan article, “Lessons from the pandemic about science education.” If our back-and-forth dialogue is part of a larger discussion in the U.S. about what aspects of scientific literacy are essential to learn in school, we will have accomplished an important goal.

Knowing basic science is one part of scientific literacy. In that sense, and in some other ways, we agree with Eric Brunsell, Kevin Anderson, Kelly Steiner, and Tom Anfinson that the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) includes elements of scientific literacy, a term that, unfortunately, has no clear definition. However, we identified many aspects of scientific literacy that we believe should be part of the NGSS but are not.

Certainly many science teachers do a great job; first-rate teachers supplement standards and textbooks in creative ways. But what about everyone else? School board members, for example, might be surprised to find no mention of viruses, immunization, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or any other scientific institutions in the NGSS, assuming those are basic elements of scientific literacy.

The NGSS differs from prior science education documents, which focused on a broader definition of scientific literacy. One key earlier document is A Framework for K-12 Science Education, which Brunsell and his coauthors reference often in their response. Although the Framework was influential in creating the NGSS, the two documents are distinctly different, with the Framework taking a far broader view of the elements of scientific literacy. Perhaps because of this more comprehensive view, the National Science Teaching Association (supportive) Position Statement about the NGSS endorses the Framework as “an essential companion document” to the standards. However, many states (not, fortunately, including Brunsell and coauthors’ home state of Wisconsin) adopted the NGSS but not the Framework. To expect teachers on their own to choose, read, and integrate the two documents seems like a high bar.

We probably all agree that reading print or online science-related articles can contribute significantly to students’ education, and that is how most people will continue to learn about science after they leave school. But the data are discouraging. For example, NAEP data show that, in 2015, 54% of 12th-grade science students reported never using library resources for science class (see Zucker & Noyce, 2020). In the same year, when 8th-grade science teachers were asked to what extent their school provided science magazines and books, in print or digital form, 65% indicated “none” or only “a small extent.” Among 8th-grade teachers 40% never asked students to read a book or magazine about science.

We wish that the NGSS included a clearer, stronger expectation that students read and critique science-related articles, including ones that spread misinformation, so that students can learn how to evaluate such information for themselves. The NGSS can be viewed as a set of minimum expectations, and we believe greater emphasis on the literacy part of scientific literacy should be part of that minimum.

We are glad that Brunsell and coauthors agree that identifying junk science is an important aspect of scientific literacy. In its January 2020 issue, The Science Teacher published an article we wrote with Andrew McCullough about a four- or five-lesson unit for grades 6-12 science classes called “Teaching Students to Resist Scientific Misinformation.” (All materials, including short videos especially created by PBS NOVA staff at WGBH, are free online.) Regrettably, rejecting misinformation, or even identifying reliable sources of information besides a textbook, are not part of the NGSS. If they were, more curricula and more teachers would teach about misinformation.

Since 2013, when the NGSS was published, scientific misinformation (indeed all types of misinformation) has become a topic of far greater importance. Many educators may now agree that teaching students to identify misinformation has become a vital part of scientific literacy and should be part of the minimum expectations in the NGSS.

References

Zucker, A. & Noyce, P. (2020, January 5). Barriers to reading about science for school [Blog post]. Improving science education standards. https://improvethengss.org/2020/01/05/barriers-to-reading-about-science-for-school/

Zucker, A., Noyce, P., & McCullough, A. (2020). Just say no! Teaching students to resist scientific misinformation. The Science Teacher, 87 (5).