Unit 1: Exploring the Nature of Light Phenomena
X. Making Connections to Educational Policies
What does it mean to do science? What should every person know about science? How should science be taught? These are questions that every community decides by what and how children learn science, or not, in its schools.
This section completes this unit. As an informed citizen, you should become aware of your community’s standards for teaching science, particularly if you are a teacher, preparing to become a teacher, or a parent advocating for more science to be taught in elementary schools.
Question 1.25 What are the current standards for teaching science at various grade levels in your community?
- Contact the department of education in your community to find out about the current standards for teaching science at various grade levels. The Oregon Department of Education’s announcement, for example, is at https://www.oregon.gov/ode/educator-resources/standards/science/Pages/Science-Standards.aspx . This state adopted the US Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS Lead States, 2013) in 2014.
A. Learning about the US Next Generation Science Standards: Science and engineering practices
The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) website is at https://www.nextgenscience.org . This website describes three dimensions of what it means to be proficient in science and engineering. These dimensions are science and engineering practices, crosscutting concepts, and disciplinary core ideas that NGSS recommends for students to learn at various grade levels.
This unit began, for example, with the scientific practice of asking questions about the nature of light such as How does light seem to travel from a source to a screen? By exploring light and shadows, students developed a model for thinking about light, that light can be envisioned as rays traveling in straight lines. Students next used that model to explain the cause of a surprising effect, that the projection on the screen of a pinhole camera is upside down. Searching for the cause of an effect is a crosscutting concept characteristic of the many domains of science and engineering. During explorations in this unit, students inferred and used a disciplinary core idea that objects can be seen when light reflected from their surfaces enters our eyes.
Development of the Next Generation Science Standards was based on an earlier document, A Framework for K-12 Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas (https://www.nap.edu/read/13165/chapter/1). The NGSS website includes a series of appendices that discuss various aspects of the Framework’s recommendations.
- NGSS Appendix F describes eight scientific and engineering practices at https://www.nextgenscience.org/resources/ngss-appendices . Scan these to see what they are and read about any that you find particularly interesting.
- Complete Table I.4 by indicating with a check mark your perception of participating in some way in some of the eight NGSS s