Lessons from the pandemic about science education

The Next Generation Science Standards insufficiently address some key aspects of science literacy, many of which are relevant to the COVID-19 crisis. 

 

If students in the United States master everything in the Next Generation Science Standards but learn nothing else about science, then they will graduate high school without knowing anything about immunization, viruses, antibodies, or vaccines, or about organizations such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization. They will never have been asked to investigate such topics as the efficacy of measles vaccine or the risks of vaping. They will never have been asked to read science-related books or articles in the popular press. Nor, for that matter, will they have been taught how to find reliable sources of information about science or how to evaluate and reject scientific misinformation, such as, for example, fringe theories about the origin of the 2019 novel coronavirus. And yet, these same students will have been required to master a host of more technical standards, such as learning to “use mathematical representations to support claims for the cycling of matter and flow of energy among organisms in an ecosystem,” even though few of them will ever use such knowledge.  

In 2017, the CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world’s largest multidisciplinary scientific society, expressed alarm that too few members of the public understand “the very idea that science is a special way for separating truth from falsehood” (Holt, 2017). Surely, though, at a time when we face recurring measles outbreaks and pandemics, unchecked climate change, and a growing mistrust of scientific expertise, students require an education that allows them to make sense of such pressing matters. 

One does not need to be a science expert to recognize that our existing K-12 national science standards omit a host of important topics. In fact, nonexperts — given their broader interest in the societal implications of scientific knowledge — may be better equipped than the experts to spot those omissions. It is often said that war is too important to be left to the generals. One might add that science education is too important to be left to the scientists.  

What’s in the standards? 

National science education standards first began to be developed in 1989 with Science for All Americans, a book created by Project 2061 at AAAS. Seven years later, National Science Education Standards (NSES) was published by the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences.  

However, critics soon found fault with the NSES, arguing that it included too many topics, resulting in a science curriculum that was “a mile wide and an inch deep.” In turn, a number of nonprofit groups and two dozen states joined forces to develop new standards, facilitated by Achieve, a nonprofit organization created by a bipartisan group of governors and business leaders. The result was the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), published in 2013 by National Academies Press.  

One does not need to be a science expert to recognize that our existing K-12 national science standards omit a host of important topics.

The 324-page NGSS improves upon the NSES in many ways. Most important, while it cuts back on the overall amount of content — aiming for deeper study of fewer items — it includes some important but previously overlooked topics (such as climate change) and integrates new fields of study. Thus, “engineering design and technology application” are now recognized as main branches of the K-12 science curriculum, along with the physical, earth, space, and life sciences. Further, instead of treating scientific inquiry as a separate topic unto itself (as the NSES did), the NGSS stresses the value of integrating key scientific practices — such as analyzing and interpreting data, testing claims empirically, and reasoning on the basis of evidence — into every part of the standards, so that students will learn about scientific phenomena by “doing” science. Moreover, in addition to learning core science content actively, by using scientific methods, students are also required to learn a number of fundamental concepts that cut across the science curriculum (e.g., “cause and effect: mechanism and explanation” and “energy and matter: flows, cycles, and conservation”). According to the NGSS, these three dimensions (disciplinary content, scientific practices, and core scientific concepts) are interconnected and should be taught together, not one at a time.  

However, while the NGSS doesn’t prohibit anybody from adding more content to the curriculum, few teachers are able to do so. In practice, most teachers have their hands full trying to integrate all three of these dimensions into every lesson, much less trying to go beyond what the standards require. If a topic isn’t included in the NGSS, it’s not likely to be taught at all, no matter how important it may be. 

What’s missing? 

We don’t mean to belittle the work of creating new education standards. The authors of the NGSS faced a complex and difficult task, not just in writing the document but in deciding what to leave out. Clearly, the previous standards document was too long, but every page was important to somebody. Competing priorities had to be juggled, and every omission had to be defended.  

Still, some unwise decisions were made, and we’re hardly the only ones to think so. For example, early in the process of writing the new standards, the National Science Teaching Association (NSTA), which represents 50,000 science educators, took a firm position on the need for “all students . . . to understand the nature of science and the history of science.” However, the final NGSS document does not mention the name of a single scientist, nor does it expect students to learn about key events in the history of science, such as Galileo’s conflict with the church about Earth’s place in the solar system or Jonas Salk’s development of a polio vaccine and his decision to place it in the public domain. Since the standards were released, the NSTA (2016, 2020) has issued position statements reiterating how important it is for students to learn about science “in the context of societal and personal concerns,” whether to inform their own health care decisions or to allow them to participate in public debates about vaccination requirements, the regulation of pesticides, online privacy protections, and any number of other policy issues. 

This echoes the position taken in A Framework for K-12 Science Education, written by the National Research Council (2012), which served, in part, as a blueprint for the 2013 standards. Students should be “careful consumers of scientific and technological information related to their everyday lives” (p. 1), asserted the earlier document. However, this priority is all but absent from the NGSS. 

Yet, with every new discovery or invention come renewed calls for students and adults alike to become better educated about science’s history and the controversies that follow from each scientific advance. In a recent Kappan article, for example, Yasmin Kafai and Justice Walker (2020) note that today’s biotechnologies allow for the genetic redesign of viruses, plants, animals, and even human beings. Not only should students learn about this cutting-edge branch of science, but they should have opportunities to discuss and debate the profound ethical and political questions that it raises. Should gene editing be used, for example, to modify crops? Should it be used by corporations to extend the life span of paying customers? Should it be used to clone people? Who decides? 

Similarly, Susan Hockfield (2018), a former president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, argues in Science magazine that if the public hopes to “get the most from this scientific golden age,” then it will have to understand the critical roles scientific institutions — such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC); the Environment Protection Agency (EPA), and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) — play in sponsoring and conducting scientific investigations and advising policy makers who apply science to vital societal issues. The work of the IPCC, for example, demonstrates the collaborative nature of science by bringing together hundreds of scientists working in multiple specialty areas. No individual can do what the IPCC does, and the IPCC’s authority is greatly strengthened because it represents the consensus opinion of so many experts. Similarly, the CDC analyzes and synthesizes dozens of studies about the efficacy of vaccines. It is hard to imagine gaining a strong understanding of climate change without referencing the IPCC or of public health without the CDC. Organizations like these can be relied on to provide continual updates about their areas of expertise long after students leave the classroom, and awareness of their work contributes to students’ becoming scientifically informed adults. Nevertheless, the NGSS is silent on the existence, much less the history and functions, of such institutions. 

How did the writers of the NGSS decide what to include and what to leave out? According to the document itself, the idea was to choose content that is “focused on preparing students for college and careers.” But, in fact, only a minority of students will need to use specialized knowledge of science and technology at college or in their future jobs. Although fewer than half of young adults have earned even an associate’s degree (Ryan & Bauman, 2016), every student will need to be able to distinguish scientific knowledge from misinformation. 

These days, roughly 45% of teens say they are “almost constantly” online (Anderson & Jiang, 2018), where misinformation is rampant. More Americans get their news from the web than from traditional sources like newspapers and television broadcasts. Still, the NGSS says nothing about how to find reliable science information on the internet or  assess scientific claims in the media.  

Even one of the key authors of the NGSS, Cary Sneider, has come to regret such omissions. “A decision that I lament,” he wrote, was to leave out a core idea from the 1996 Framework document,  which urged science educators to “emphasize the links among engineering, technology, science, and society” (personal communication, December 2019). Doing so, Sneider acknowledges, would have strengthened the connection between science and civics education. 

Toward better science standards 

Given the many strengths of the NGSS, we believe it ought to be revised, not abandoned. Most important, we would reframe its guiding purpose. Rather than placing so much emphasis on preparing students for college and careers, we argue that its chief goal should be to ensure that all students attain the capacity to act as scientifically informed citizens.   

In fact, much of the NGSS already lends itself to this purpose. By requiring young people to learn important scientific content and principles while using core scientific methods, the current standards go a long way toward helping them become scientifically literate. However, informed citizens must also: 

• Be able to distinguish between high-quality information and junk science.
• Know something about the nature of science and key episodes in the history of science.
• Have a basic understanding of disease, disease prevention, epidemiology, and other fundamentals of public health.
• Understand the vital role of key scientific organizations, including reviewing and evaluating scientific findings, helping to build scientific consensus (a defining aspect of the nature of science), and communicating reliable information to policy makers and the public. 

Further, other topics may be critically important to the practice of citizenship in particular states or localities. For example, one might argue that every student raised in a rural area should have a basic understanding of agricultural science, and those who live in coastal communities ought to know something about marine biology. 

We see three plausible ways by which to revise and improve the NGSS along these lines: 

Modify state standards 

While the NGSS was intended to guide K-12 science instruction throughout the country, states are not required to adopt it, and they are free to use or adapt whichever parts of it they like. In fact, some states have already modified their own standards to emphasize topics and approaches that are missing in the NGSS. Massachusetts, for example, aims to prepare students to apply their scientific knowledge “to real-world applications needed for civic participation.” And while the NGSS is silent on the essential 21st-century skill of media literacy, Massachusetts expects students to learn to “evaluate the validity and reliability of and/or synthesize multiple claims, methods, and/or designs that appear in scientific and technical texts or media, verifying the data when possible.” Even in the 20 states that adopted the NGSS whole cloth, there’s no reason why such modifications can’t be made, and for those 20 states this approach would be the quickest.  

Make modest changes to the NGSS itself 

We’ve heard from many science educators who admire the NGSS — and who credit it with promoting student-centered, inquiry-based instruction — but who think it could be improved by tweaking the existing document without making drastic changes. Perhaps some topics could be added, while others could be removed, keeping the standards to a reasonable length. 

However, while this approach might result in some improvements, it wouldn’t address what we consider to be its main shortcoming: its commitment to preparing students for college and careers, without attending to the civic purposes of K-12 education. Nor would tinkering with the NGSS respond to the concerns raised by the NSTA, whose position statements call for students to learn about the nature and history of science, and to make connections between science and personal and societal issues.  

Nor would it offer any relief to teachers who find it exhausting to integrate scientific content, principles, and practices into every lesson, as the NGSS requires. Surely, students can become scientifically literate without being expected to conduct experiments, test claims, and otherwise “do science” in every class. Sometimes, it’s appropriate to read and discuss a science-related article from a magazine or write a few paragraphs about a topic of interest (such as the health risks of vaping or the possibility that Mars could be terraformed). Reading, synthesizing, and writing are important modes of learning, even if they do not fit neatly into the model of good teaching described in the NGSS. The problem (which won’t be solved merely by adding and removing a few topics to the standards) is that while the NGSS moved the proverbial pendulum in the right direction — toward engaging students in the active doing of science — it pushed that pendulum to an unworkable extreme. 

Change the NGSS’s structure 

Despite the strengths of the NGSS, we believe the existing structure is too narrow and prescriptive. Although the NGSS defines a “floor” that teachers are free to add to, teachers will naturally spend more time on whatever is in the NGSS and far less time on anything else. Also, it seems unrealistic to expect teachers and school administrators to pay attention to so many different documents, including the NGSS, its 170-page appendices, multiple position statements from the NSTA, specifications of high-stakes tests, the Common Core, A Framework for K-12 Science Education, and more. Requiring teachers to look “elsewhere” for important ideas does not seem the best approach. 

A thorough revision of the NGSS would add introductory text establishing that its major goal is to help students attain the scientific literacy they will need as adults. The text would expand on the importance of teaching students science in the context of societal and personal issues and the need to include some history of science and basic information about the nature of science, such as how scientists reach consensus. Reference would be made to the Common Core, and science teachers might be asked to integrate reading and writing about science every week. Instead of insisting that every science lesson include the three dimensions identified in the NGSS, the standards could ask that teachers include the three dimensions weekly. Some of the more technical performance expectations in the NGSS, such as the one requiring students “to use mathematical representations to support claims for the cycling of matter and flow of energy among organisms in an ecosystem,” cited in our first paragraph, would be eliminated. And performance expectations on understanding 
the nature and role of key scientific institutions, developing a basic understanding of disease, and learning to identify reliable sources of scientific information should be added. Although we realize that making these changes would take time and strong leadership, we believe the effort is worthwhile. 

The science education we need 

The nation’s schools always face difficult choices about what to teach and how, and that’s true for every field, not just the sciences. A number of years ago, for example, some policy makers rushed to mandate algebra instruction for all 8th-grade students, on the theory that this would put them on track to succeed in college and would improve educational equity. However, critics argued that this mandate was counterproductive, as many students were simply not prepared to take algebra — and subsequent research demonstrated that the critics were correct (Clotfelter et al., 2015; Domina et al., 2015). Further, some commentators have argued that  algebra should not be a required subject at all (e.g., Hacker, 2012), and others argue that instead of advanced mathematics most students would be better served by studying topics — such as the basics of statistics and personal finance — that will help them become mathematically literate citizens. Informed debate is essential to standards development in every discipline. 

On one hand, K-12 education faces calls to prioritize the teaching of specialized subject matter that will, presumably, prepare young people for college and careers. On the other hand, it faces calls to broaden those subjects, not to water them down but to ensure that students not only master the basics of the academic disciplines but also learn what they need to know to thrive as individuals and citizens. When it comes to science education, we argue that the pendulum has swung too far toward the first goal at the expense of the second. 

Before the NGSS can be significantly improved, though, many people and groups will need to speak out in support of change. It’s very likely that this will require action on the part of important national organizations, such as the NSTA, AAAS, the Council of Chief State School Officers, the National Governors Association, and the National Research Council of the National Academies of Science. However, organizations like these respond to pressure, whether from members, government officials, or the general public. Ultimately, individual opinions, expressed forcefully and to the right people, make a difference. Those who believe that science education standards need improvement ought to raise the issue with peers, local school leaders, state school boards, professional associations, and others. 

Finally, while some science educators have long seen weaknesses in the Next Generation Science Standards, the world-shaking onset of COVID-19 should make these weaknesses clear to all. Whether at the national, state, or even the local level, science education standards need to be improved to ensure that the nation’s young people become scientifically literate. Democracy depends on the ability of ordinary citizens to distinguish between credible information and outright falsehoods. The task of establishing appropriate goals for education should be entrusted not just to discplinary specialists but to everyone who wishes to build a strong and healthy society.  

• Related: Science standards do address scientific literacy: A reply to Zucker and Noyce
• Related: Science standards: The authors respond

References 

American Association for the Advancement of Science. (1989). Science for all Americans. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. 

Anderson, M. & Jiang, J. (2018). Teens’ social media habits and experiences. Washington, DC: Pew Research Center. 

Clotfelter, C.T., Ladd, H.F. & Jacob L. & Vigdor, J.L. (2015). The aftermath of accelerating algebra: Evidence from district policy initiatives. Journal of Human Resources, 50 (1), 159-188. 

Domina, T., McEachin, A., Penner, A., & Penner, E. (2015). Aiming high and falling short: California’s algebra-for all effort. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 37 (3), 275-295. 

Hacker, A. (2012, July 28). Is algebra necessary? The New York Times.  

Hockfield, S. (2018). Our science, our society. Science, 359 (6375), 498. 

Holt, R. (2017). What is the evidence? APS (American Physical Society) News, 26 (5). 

Kafai, Y.B. & Walker, J.T. (2020, May 5). Bringing 21st-century science into schools. Phi Delta Kappan. 

Massachusetts Dept. of Elementary & Secondary Education. (2016). 2016 Massachusetts Science and Technology/Engineering Curriculum Framework. Malden, MA: Author. 

NGSS Lead States. (2013). Next Generation Science Standards: For states, by states. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. 

National Research Council. (1996). National Science Education Standards. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. 

National Research Council. (2012). A Framework for K-12 science education: Practices, cross-cutting concepts, and core ideas. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. 

National Science Teaching Association. (2016). Position statement: Teaching science in the context of societal and personal issues. Arlington, VA: Author.  

National Science Teaching Association. (2020). NSTA position statement: The nature of science. Arlington, VA: Author. 

Ryan, C.L. & Bauman, K. (2016). Educational attainment in the United States: 2015. Washington, DC: United States Census Bureau.