Florida Citizens for Science

Florida Today has a strongly-worded editorial in favoring of supporting and strengthening science education in the state’s curriculum standards: check it out at http://www.floridatoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051020/OPINION/510200326/1004

A few highlights:

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A National Academies of Sciences panel last week warned Congress that American students are performing at levels below students in other countries and the nation must act to improve science learning or put its economic security at risk.

Better science achievement is especially crucial in Brevard County and Florida, which must develop a new generation of high-tech workers and scientists to fuel NASA’s moon-Mars mission and other 21st-century scientific ventures.

And evolution — a unifying scientific concept supported by overwhelming evidence and the great majority of the international scientific community — should be part of students’ knowledge base.

That’s why it’s troubling that Bush, who touts himself as the education governor, has not only chosen a pro-creationism leader for the DOE, but also said this month evolution wasn’t part of Florida’s state standards.

He was wrong. It is, in a roundabout way.

Currently, state standards call for high school students to understand the basics of evolutionary science, such as natural selection and change over time, but the e-word itself is never used.

We previously said that euphemistic approach — perhaps meant to placate anti-evolution groups in the state — is wrong.

Florida’s science standards should be revised to include a clear requirement that evolution be taught thoroughly and unapologetically.
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