Florida Citizens for Science

The new draft of the Florida science standards is up and ready for public comment. Please head over there, read through the standards and give ‘em some support!

You will be able to rate each benchmark and leave comments for the standards writers so that they can correct errors and make improvements. The public review stage will last until December 19, 2007. There will also be a concurrent review of the standards by an expert review board. All the comments will be reviewed and possibly incorporated into the standards if they are insightful. At some point in January 2008, the standards will go up for a vote before the State Board of Education. It’s important that you talk about these science standards with everyone you know. Talk to members of any science oriented group of which you are a member. Get the word out! The anti-science groups in Florida are coming out in force trying to remove evolution and water down the standards. We need to be out in force ourselves.

Be sure to read through other posts here on the FCS blog to see how this is playing out across the state. On the one hand, a few newspapers are insisting on playing up the inclusion of evolution in the standards and thus stirring up all the creationists. On the other hand, some newspapers are publishing editorials in support of evolution in the standards. Interesting times, indeed.

Florida Citizens for Science president, Joe Wolf, had an excellent quote in an Orlando Sentinel story this weekend about the new draft of the state science standards. He did a great job of playing down this “controversy” over evolution by putting it into realistic perspective. Thanks, Joe!

On the other hand, I personally don’t think the reporter should have made evolution the focus of the story. Evolution is just one part of the vast field of science. Because it attracts so much attention, I guess it’s pretty much mandatory for reporters to write about it. So, I understand that evolution needed to be brought up, but the focus should have been on the Fordham report, or Florida student performance on the science FCAT. The desire to make these standards useful to teachers and students is what’s important. Just because some people have heartburn with one concept out of many science concepts doesn’t merit the lead of the story.

Let’s not get distracted from what really matters: kids learning science.

Here’s Joe’s quote from the story:

Joe Wolf, president of Florida Citizens for Science, called the draft standards a “wonderful” blueprint for science education. Wolf, of Winter Haven, said the evolution debate holds little interest to most scientists, who accept it as fact. That’s why the issue did not become controversial during the standards-writing meetings, he said.

“It’s a PR issue,” he said. “And it’s a religious issue. In the scientific community, it’s not an issue.”

If the new standards are adopted, “I think the kids will have a better understanding of science, which is what it’s all about,” Wolf added.

Be sure to read through the reader comments that are with the story. It’s a good, if scary, look at what people are thinking. It’s obvious a lot of people out there desperately need better science education!

(This is a crosspost with The Panda’s Thumb by FCS board member Pete Dunkelberg.)

In Florida, we have just finished writing new science standards for all grades of public schools. The standards are intended to be a core of fundamentals that will be taught and tested. I am commenting on an email sent to a number of the standards writers by Fred Cutting of Florida. Cutting has some suggestions for the new Florida School Science Standards, and concludes a longish email with these two proposed additions:

1. Standards requiring students to learn about the anomalies to all theories (standard models) including standard models for the origin and evolution of life;

2. Standards requiring students to learn about the abuses and misuses of science in America’s recent history.

The first of these is supposed to accomplish many things:

… teaching in greater depth the basic concepts (theories). To stimulate the creative thinking abilities of the students, the anomalies with the theories should also be taught. By studying/discussing the anomalies, creative thinking will be stimulated. Equally important, such an approach will teach students that we do not have all the answers and that it is the job of scientists to challenge old ideas and make new discoveries. This will give students the freedom to question theories and thereby be creative thinkers. More importantly, it will give them a deeper understanding of the theory being taught.”

Is teaching really that easy? Or will teaching a bunch of alleged anomalies to beginners struggling to grasp the basics just confuse them, or perhaps turn them into sterile contrarians?

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