Conceptual Framework for New Science Education Standards

The long anticipated report “Framework for K-12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas” is now available for downloading from The National Academies Press. You can download the “prepublication PDF” for free.

Also see Curriculm Matters blog, Education Week article (it looks like you have to subscribe to see the whole thing, though), and the Gradebook blog.

Evolution is a Life Science “core idea,” which should make for some colorful fireworks among the anti-evolution crowd. Here are some excerpts:

The life sciences focus on patterns, processes, and relationships of living organisms. Life is self-contained, self-sustaining, self-replicating, and evolving, operating according to laws of the physical world, as well as genetic programming.

From viruses and bacteria to plants to fungi to animals, the diversity of the millions of life forms on Earth is astonishing. Without unifying principles, it would be difficult to make sense of the living world and apply those understandings to solving problems. A core principle of the life sciences is that all organisms are related by evolution and that evolutionary processes have led to the tremendous diversity of the biosphere. There is diversity within species as well as between species. Yet what is learned about the function of a gene or a cell or process in one organism is relevant to other organisms because of their ecological interactions and evolutionary relatedness. Evolution and its underlying genetic mechanisms of inheritance and variability are key to understanding both the unity and the diversity of life on Earth.

Just as the life sciences are anchored by core principles, this framework is organized around four core ideas reflecting unifying principles in life sciences. … Finally, the core ideas in the life sciences culminate with the principle that evolution can explain how the diversity that is observed within species has led to the diversity of life across species through a process of descent with adaptive modification. Evolution also accounts for the remarkable similarity of the fundamental characteristics of all species.

Biological evolution explains both the unity and the diversity of species and provides a unifying principle for the history and diversity of life on Earth [8]. Biological evolution is supported by extensive scientific evidence ranging from the fossil record to genetic relationships among species.

The evolution section has these main points:

— Evidence of Common Ancestry and Diversity
– Natural Selection
— Adaptation
— Biodiversity and Humans

About Brandon Haught

Communications Director for Florida Citizens for Science.
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