Florida Citizens for Science

The final version of the Next Generation Science Standards were released today.

Worried that public schools are failing to prepare students for a complex and changing world, educators unveiled new guidelines Tuesday that call for sweeping changes in the way science is taught in the United States, emphasizing hands-on learning and critical scrutiny of scientific evidence.

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The guidelines, known as the Next Generation Science Standards, were devised to combat widespread scientific ignorance, standardize teaching among disparate states and raise the number of high school graduates who choose scientific and technical majors in college, a critical issue for the country’s economic welfare.

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Many states are likely to adopt the guidelines over the next year, but it could be years before the guidelines are translated into detailed curriculum documents and specific lesson plans, teachers are trained or retrained in the material and centralized tests are revised.

And all of this has to happen at a time when state education departments and many local schools are under severe financial strain. Inevitably, educators said, some states will do it better than others.

“You can’t do education on the cheap,” said Eugenie C. Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education, a group that counters efforts to undermine the teaching of evolution and climate science. “Teachers are going to need some help in mastering this approach.”

You can view the standards here.

The development of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) is nearing completion, and the final release of the NGSS is anticipated in the second week in April (April 8-12). When the standards are released, they will be available on the www.nextgenscience.org website. I suppose we then sit back and patiently wait for the FDOE and the FBOE to make a decision to adopt the standards, or not?

For those of you that are in the Lakeland area and have a free couple of hours to spare,I will be speaking at the  Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Lakeland, 3140 Troy Ave Lakeland Fl, on Sunday the 21st of April 1.30 pm.  The talk ” The Search for Extraterrestrial Life” will cover quite a few topics including, what life as we know it is, how to look for life in our own solar system and how we search for life in other areas of the Universe. I have just finished a 15 week course from the University of Edinburgh and found the topic fascinating,I hope those who attend will feel the same.

Here’s an information dump of interesting tidbits that have popped up recently …

– Station WLRN out of Miami doesn’t seem too sure that Florida is on board with the national Next Generation Science Standards, especially as they apply to the teaching of climate change. Florida Not Among States Expected To Teach Students About Climate Change:

More than two dozen states are expected to adopt new national science education standards that include teaching children as young as elementary school about the effects of climate change. Florida was not among the 26 states that helped to “provide leadership” during the development stage of the Next Generation Science Standards, and it is unclear if it is among the roughly 15 states “that have indicated they may accept them,” according to Inside Climate News.

– The Liberty Council has had their fingers in past evolution/creationism conflicts, and now their influence is possibly growing with a new merger. Liberty Council merges with Florida Faith & Works registry:

Maitland-based Liberty Counsel, best known for it law suits to protect religion in the public schools and opposition to gay rights, is merging with the Florida Faith & Works Coalition, a 600-member registry of pastors and volunteers committed to keeping America a Christian nation.

The merger gives Liberty Council a database network of “Christian Bible Believing Pastors” throughout Florida.

Link to Liberty Councel and link to Florida Faith & Works.

– Hidden Ark: 500-Foot Noah’s Ark Replica Zoo Being Built Near Miami:

Noah’s Ark — without all the flood and calamity — is coming to Miami.

A group of four friends behind an unusual Biblical-themed zoo under construction in Hialeah hope to raise environmental awareness by building it almost to the exact specifications of its Old Testament inspiration: 500 feet long, shaped like a boat, and made out of wood.

– Here’s an article about Liberty University growing online (including Florida students). Virginia’s Liberty emerging as evangelical giant:

The small Baptist college that television preacher Jerry Falwell founded here in 1971 has capitalized on the online education boom to become an evangelical mega-university with global reach.

In the almost six years since Falwell’s death, Liberty University has doubled its student head count — twice.

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“We want to relate all of our subjects back to Scripture, theology and a biblical worldview,” he said. But Tinsley said students use textbooks that would be found in secular universities. In certain situations in an Earth science course, for example, a student would learn the case for biblical creation alongside the science of evolution.

“We try to present full arguments on both sides and then allow the student to make a decision,” Tinsley said. He added, “I’ve had many students over the years who have held to an evolutionary standpoint and gotten A’s.”

It’s official! I got a contract from my publisher. My book about the history of the evolution vs. creationism conflict in Florida is going to be published!

Florida Citizens for Science vice-president Jonathan Smith once again pens a newspaper column, this time honoring Darwin Day with a lesson about evidences for evolution all around us: See Evolution Evidence in Daily Life.

As a society, we remain ambivalent toward the subject, not realizing that trying to equate Darwin with our modern-day understanding of evolution is rather like associating the Wright brothers to space flight.

If, as a nation, we wish to compete in a rapidly advancing technological world arena, we should take note of the advice offered by Darwin: “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”

In America, the time for that change is long overdue.

Florida Citizens for Science vice president Jonathan Smith keeps up the pressure on our state to put a priority on science education. Will we ever get anywhere?

My Word: Science education beyond the back seat

The importance of science has been at the forefront of discussions on education. Both Gov. Rick Scott and new state Education Commissioner Tony Bennett have emphasized Florida’s need for improvement in this area.

They claim that providing a top-class science education for K-12 students has to be one of the state’s top priorities. Yet this is clearly not the case.

The Orlando Sentinel’s School Zone blog took notice of the voucher-accepting-private-schools-that-teach-creationism mess that I posted about before.

Teaching of creationism at voucher schools raises alarm (again), as taxpayer money supports Bible-based lessons

The end of the post notes:

Of course, this is not a new issue, as colleague Dave Weber noted the issue in stories here and here about the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship program. That program pays for poor children to attend private schools, many of which are religious.

State officials have argued that with that program, the state isn’t directly paying for the religious education. They say that because the scholarship program is funded by corporate donations that companies give in exchange for state tax credits, not by a direct payout from the state treasury.

My opinion is that true, it’s not right out of the state treasury, but that particular scholarship program is just a way to game the system so that voucher supporters can point at the state treasury and say “see, the money isn’t coming from there” in an effort to distract people from seeing the money slipping out through the trap door under the carpet. The corporations get tax credits. Isn’t that tax money that would have gone into the state treasury if not for the program? If I’m wrong, then please correct me, and I mean that sincerely. Am I missing something?

And let’s not let talk of the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship distract us from remembering that there is another voucher program in the state, the McKay Scholarship program. You’ll find the creationist private schools on its qualified list.