According to the committee that drafted and wrote the final edition of the Framework for K-12 Science Education, American science education needs a complete overhaul, currently lacks vision, and does not prepare students for a scientifically and technologically-based society.

Helen Quinn, Chair of the National Research Council’s Conceptual Framework for K – 12 Science Education Committee had this to say about the state of science education in the USA:

Currently, science education in the U.S. lacks a common vision of what students should know and be able to do by the end of high school, curricula too often emphasize breadth over depth, and students are rarely given the opportunity to experience how science is actually done.

Truth be told, this same argument was set forth in the late 1980s when the AAAS created Project 2061, Benchmarks for Science Literacy, which led to the creation of the National Science Education Standards (NSES).  And these standards have become the benchmark for the state departments of education to develop their own standards in science.

The Framework for K-12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts and Core Ideas, according to the NRC committee, provides a blueprint for K-12 science education, and will lead to the development of a new set of science education standards.

What are some of the attributes of this new framework?  Here are just 5 attributes, and of course I could identify many more.  But I hope this will get you started exploring this new document.

1. Dimensions.  It’s a book length report, spanning 280 pages.  It contains 13 chapters, divided into three sections: Section I: A Vision for K-12 Science Education; Part II: Dimensions of the Framework; Part III: Realizing the Vision. You can download a PDF file of the entire book for free here.

2. Vision for K-12 Science Education.  According to the report, “The framework is designed to help realize a vision for education in the sciences and engineering in which students, over multiple years of school, actively engage in science and engineering practices and apply crosscutting concepts to deepen their understanding of the core ideas in these fields.”  Two reasons are given for writing a new Framework.  The first is that its been 15 years since we wrote the last set of standards (NSES).  The second is that science education community has the opportunity to use the momentum of Common State Core Standards movement.  In fact, the Framework will be used by Achieve, Inc., to write the new science standards.  Achieve wrote the reading/language art and math Common Core State Standards.

The vision is stated in terms of “by the end of the 12th grade, students should have gained sufficient knowledge of the practices, crosscutting ideas and core ideas to be able to..”  This is language similar to the way in which standards are presented in the NSES, and in most state science standards.

The vision of the new Framework, according to the Committee, is based on the earlier documents including the NSES 1996 standards, AAAS Benchmarks, the Science Framework for the NAEP, and Science College Board Standards for College Success.

3. Practices.  This is the first of three major dimensions of the Framework (the other two follow in items 4 and 5 below).  The Committee chose the term “practices” (as in scientific and engineering practices) to get us away from the notion that there is one scientific method.  The Committee believes that students should learn how scientists and engineers do their work, and thus should be involved in the practices of science and engineering.  You will find the “practices” very familiar because they are a list of science processes that emerged decades ago with the science reform era of the 1960s.  The committee identified these as scientific and engineering practices that students should learn:

1. Asking questions (for science) and defining problems (for engineering)
2. Developing and using models
3. Planning and carrying out investigations
4. Analyzing and interpreting data
5. Using mathematics, information and computer technology, and computational thinking
6. Constructing explanations (for science) and designing solutions (for engineering)
7. Engaging in argument from evidence
8. Obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information

There is also a lengthy discussion of how science and engineering differ, as well as how the “practices” of science and engineering are different from each other.

4. Crosscutting Concepts.  The committee defines “crosscutting concepts” as concepts that bridge disciplinary boundaries, having explanatory value throughout much of science and engineering.  Examples of crosscutting concepts will be very familiar to you.  Some include patterns, cause and effect, and stability and change.  As stated in the report, the committee acknowledged that crosscutting ideas were no different than earlier reports’ usage of terms like unifying concepts or common themes.  Each crosscutting concept is explained in detail, and you can read about them in the report here.  The complete list of crosscutting concepts include:

• Patterns
• Cause and effect
• Scale, proportion, and quantity
• Systems and system models
• Energy and matter
• Structure and function
• Stability and change

5. Core Ideas.  Now we are getting to the heart of the Framework, the core ideas.  The Committee wanted to focus on a limited number of ideas and the Framework organizes the science & engineering curriculum into four core areas with just a few core ideas identified in each area: Physical Science, Earth and Space Science (which the committee thinks is a new area of the science curriculum!), Life Science, and Engineering, Technology and Applications of Science (ETAS).  ETAS is an area new to the science standards, although some of you might argue that STS, and Context-Based Teaching explored some of the ideas in this part of the Framework.  Unfortunately, there is little integration of ideas, that is to say, wouldn’t have been possible to integrate ETAS into each of the three content areas of Physical, Life and Earth/Space science?

Within each area, the Committee, through the work of separate design teams for each content area, identify just a few core ideas—three or four core ideas that the committee felt underscored the essence of that particular content area.

The report identifies the core ideas as shown in example taken from the Physical Science content area:

CORE IDEA PS1: MATTER AND ITS INTERACTIONS
How can one explain the structure, properties, and interactions of matter?

So, the first Core Idea in the physical sciences is “matter and its interactions” followed by a core question.  Interestingly, the committee identified two fundamental questions for the physical sciences which included: questions—“What is everything made of?” and “Why do things happen?”

The committee then identifies “grade band endpoints for each content area at these grade level points: grade 2, grade 5, grade 8, and grade 12.  These are quite specific paragraphs of what students should know about the core idea at these points along the students’ school experience.

Each of the content areas of Life science, Earth/Space science, Engineering is detailed in the same manner as the physical sciences.

I’ve identified for you only 5 attributes of the new Framework.  There are many more, but I hope that these help you explore the Framework, from the standpoint of its strengths and weaknesses.  Let us know what you think.