Science Education Curriculum

Aim of Science/STEM Education: Science Literacy

Science literacy is the outcome of science education and has two dimensions. The first is the general education necessary for a fully realized life. Science literacy also reflects a deep and rich understanding of the natural world as revealed though science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Scientific literacy enables one to examine experience reflectively, draw conclusions and to make judgments about the dilemmas, enigmas, and problems posed to the individual, the community, the nation, and the world by nature, including health of individuals, populations, and the natural world itself.

Perhaps the most important policy influence on STEM education as it touches on students and teachers has been the conceptualization and then the legislative mandates for the implementation of academic standards, both for science and the other “core” subjects, English language arts, mathematics, and social studies.

The publication of A Nation at Risk in 1983 attributed the weakness of the U.S. educational system to its failure to identify in a clear and compelling way the specific objectives for student learning. The remedy was to be the development of clear and measurable statements of what all children should know and be able to do in both the core content areas as well as in the visual and performing arts, health, and physical education.

The science education community responded to the standards movement positively. The American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world's largest general science society, initiated Project 2061 in 1985. The explicit aim of the founders of Project 2061 was to make it possible for all U.S. citizens to achieve science literacy. Project 2061 initiated collaboration with scientists, educators, universities, and school districts that resulted in a series of documents that culminated in the publication of the National Research Council of the National Science Education Standards in 1996. Other documents included Science for All Americans published in 1989, Benchmarks for Science Literacy published in 1993, and the Atlas for Science Literacy published in 2001 and revised in 2008.

When states began to create accountability systems during the decade of the 1990s, the National Science Education Standards were used as the model for the development of individual state standards. The state standards then became the basis for the development of the state accountability [Page 766]tests. By 2008, all but one state (Iowa) had academic standards along with an accountability testing system.

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