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Florida Citizens for Science |
Florida’s public school science standards are not in need of a tweak or pretty makeover. They need to be overhauled. The Thomas B. Fordham Institute gave Florida an ugly ol’ F for its science standards. In part, the review says:
Life sciences and evolution are given shorter shrift than any of the others. The E-word is sedulously avoided. Here, there are some loose, if not incorrect, generalities offered as standards: “… knows that the fossil record provides evidence that changes in the kinds of plants and animals in the environment have been occurring over time.” There is little in the way of useful guidance for teachers or others toward appropriate content in the biological sciences and especially in the history of life and the basic mechanisms of change.
And that’s just one portion. Read the report for more bad news if you haven’t read it all yet.
So, what’s the big deal? Who cares about this little ol’ science standards thing? Fluff up the words a bit and it will look like new, right?
No. Absolutely not! Go to this New York Times article, print it out and make copies. Send it to everyone in the state and rub their noses in it. Make sure everyone knows just how important this issue really is!
The article starts off relating how difficult a veteran teacher named Pat New had it when evolution was mentioned in the classroom, which happened to be all the time.
She isn’t sure how many questioned her teaching of evolution — perhaps a dozen parents, teachers and administrators and several students in her seventh-grade life science class. They sent e-mail messages and letters, stopped her in the hall, called board members, demanded meetings, requested copies of the PBS videos that she showed in class.
…
On April 25, 2005, during a meeting about parent complaints with her principal, Rick Conner, she recalled: “He took a Bible off the bookshelf behind him and said, ‘Patty I believe in everything in this book, do you?’ I told him, ‘I really feel uncomfortable about your asking that question.’ He wouldn’t let it go.’ ” The next day, she said, in the lunchroom, “he reached across the table, took my hand and said: ‘I accept evolution in most things but if they ever say God wasn’t involved I couldn’t accept that. I want you to say that, Pat.’ ”
Asked to comment during an interview here, Mr. Conner would say only, “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Four days after her encounter with the principal, Ms. New was summoned to a meeting with the superintendent, Dewey Moye, as well as the principal and two parents upset about her teaching evolution. “We have to let parents ask questions,” Mr. Moye told her. “It’s a public school. In a democracy people can ask questions.”
Ms. New said the parents, “badgered, got loud and sarcastic and there was no support from administrators.”
But Ms. New finally found a way to deflect the distracting, demoralizing assault on her classroom instruction: cite the state standards.
“It takes a lot to stand up and be willing to have people angry at you,” she said. But Ms. New did. She repeatedly urged her supervisors to read Georgia’s science standards, particularly S7L5, which calls for teaching evolution.
On May 5, 2005, she filled out a complaint to initiate a grievance under state law, writing that she was being “threatened and harassed” though “I am following approved curriculum.”
…
And parents’ rights? “I explained to parents that we’re following the state standards,” Mr. Moye said. “I said, ‘You can believe what you want, but we have to teach the standards.’ If they’re upset, they can take it up on the state level.”
…
Ms. New said that from then on, including the entire 2005-06 school year, she had no problem teaching evolution. “What saved me, was I didn’t have to argue evolution with these people. All I had to say was, ‘I’m following state standards.’ “
Can Florida teachers fall back on the standards?
No.
Here’s a very well-stated, clear declaration about evolution (pdf) from 67 national acadamies of science. Bottom line: teach it, it’s science, it’s important.
We, the undersigned Academies of Sciences, have learned that in various parts of the world,within science courses taught in certain public systems of education, scientific evidence, data,and testable theories about the origins and evolution of life on Earth are being concealed,denied, or confused with theories not testable by science. We urge decision makers, teachers, and parents to educate all children about the methods and discoveries of science and to foster an understanding of the science of nature. Knowledge of the natural world in which they live empowers people to meet human needs and protect the planet.
We agree that the following evidence-based facts about the origins and evolution of the Earth and of life on this planet have been established by numerous observations and independently derived experimental results from a multitude of scientific disciplines. Even if there are still many open questions about the precise details of evolutionary change, scientific evidence has never contradicted these results:
1. In a universe that has evolved towards its present configuration for some 11 to 15 billion years, our Earth formed approximately 4.5 billion years ago.
2. Since its formation, the Earth – its geology and its environments – has changed under the effect of numerous physical and chemical forces and continues to do so.
3. Life appeared on Earth at least 2.5 billion years ago. The evolution, soon after, of photosynthetic organisms enabled, from at least 2 billion years ago, the slow transformation of the atmosphere to one containing substantial quantities of oxygen. In addition to the release of the oxygen that we breathe, the process of photosynthesis is the ultimate source of fixed energy and food upon which human life on the planet depends.
4. Since its first appearance on Earth, life has taken many forms, all of which continue to evolve, in ways which palaeontology and the modern biological and biochemical sciences are describing and independently confirming with increasing precision. Commonalities in the structure of the genetic code of all organisms living today, including humans, clearly indicate their common primordial origin.
Here’s a question posed in the Sun-Sentinel newspaper by a reader:
Q. What is a good way to explain evolution vs. intelligent design to our 14-year-old daughter? We know how we feel, but we want her to be able to make up her own mind. — K. J. R., Plantation
Read the column to see how a Fort Lauderdale reverend responded. How would you answer?
Over at Physicians and Surgeons for Scientific Integrity (I posted about this group before), they’re putting on a show in September:
Save the Date!
Darwin or Design?
Resolving the Conflict
University of South Florida’s Sun Dome, Sept. 29th, 2006 at 7:00 p.mSponsored by Physicians and Surgeons for Scientific Integrity
www.doctorsdoubtingdarwin.orgFeaturing:
Dr. Michael Behe
Biologist and author of Darwin’s Black BoxDr. Jonathan Wells
Biochemist and author of Icons of EvolutionEmcee:
Dr. Tom Woodward
Author of Doubts About Darwin* High school and college faculty and students with an appropriate school ID
will be admitted to the event free of charge. The admission fee for all others
is only $5.* Each high school or college student attending the event will receive a free
copy of the powerful DVD Unlocking the Mystery of Life.
The USF Sun Dome website confirms that a conference is going on that day:
Event Information
Title: Physicians & Surgeons Conference
Category: Conferences
Date: Friday, September 29, 2006
Time: Unspecified
Calendar: USF Sun Dome Events
Contact: sglaser
Location: Sun Dome Arena
Phone Number: 974-3111
We here at Florida Citizens for Science just found out about it, but it’s plenty of advance notice. We’re going to brainstorm some ideas about what we might want to do. If you want to join in on this bit of potential activism, let us know!
A post on Pharyngula points out that Floridian Kent Hovind lost his battle concerning Dinosaur Adventure Land.
On June 5th 2006, Hovind pled nolo contendere as charged to three counts: constructing a building without a permit, refusing to sign a citation and violating the county building code. Hovind was ordered to pay $225.00 per count. The plea brings to an end a 5-year battle over a $50.00 building permit. Hovind estimates he spent $40,000 in legal expenses on this case. Meanwhile, the property taxes for Dinosaur Adventure Land are in arrears in an amount of $10,338.36 ($4,955.23 for 2005 and 5,383.13 for 2003 and 2004).
In schools across the region, students who can barely tie their shoes are learning to use microscopes, spell “soil” and ask why.
“Even the babies in kindergarten are learning the basics of Newton’s Law with push and pull,” said Susan Puchalla, Sarasota County science coordinator.
Educators are laying the groundwork for success on the state science test with even the youngest students.
…
Instead of updating high school labs, where students learn higher-level disciplines such as chemistry and physics, the district put a priority on building elementary school labs.
“That’s your foundation,” Puchalla said. “Everything builds from there.”
Now every elementary has a dedicated science room with lab tables, stereo microscopes and enough beakers and test tubes to satisfy any budding scientist.
Students practice a hands-on science activity in the lab about once a week in addition to regular science lessons in class.
…
Teachers also want to tap into the natural curiosity of young children who seem almost programmed to ask “why?” — a question that has fueled many scientific discoveries.
“At kindergarten, first and second grade, you really need to focus on that interest,” said Jackie Speake, science curriculum specialist in Charlotte County schools. “As they get older, they’ve lost that natural curiosity.”
At freshman orientation every year, Joseph G. Meert, a University of Florida geology professor, [ed -- Florida Citizens for Science Vice President] sees the effects of a generation of students who haven’t learned to love science.
“Invariably, they all want to be doctors and lawyers,” Meert said. “Very few come in wanting to be a scientist.”
Is there anything better than such a glowing story about fun science done by talented kids and young adults?
“Geek Responsibly.”
That’s the unofficial motto of Team 1902 — Exploding Bacon, also sometimes known as Winter Park Robotics Inc., easily identified by its team emblem, a pig on a rocket.
Welcome to a brave new world of science and technology competition where everything is either amazing, astounding, incomprehensible or unbelievable.
…
This is a group of students from Winter Park High, University High, Lake Highland Prep and Glenridge Middle School, assisted by a few University of Central Florida mentors and a couple of engineers. They designed and built a programmable entity that can do assigned tasks, that can react to electronically transmitted commands and that has rudimentary judgment skills.
That’s only a few doors down the technological hall from R2-D2 and C-3PO.
…You could tell that in addition to this being a learning experience, they had the time of their lives. That alone would qualify this as a success story, but that alone is only the introduction.
Not only did they manage to build a robot, but they also built one that managed to kick a little national and international butt, bringing home the bacon for Team 1902 from FIRST Robotics Competition events. The team’s honors include Florida Regional Finalist, Florida Regional Rookie All-Star, Florida Regional Highest Rookie Seed, Lone Star Regional Rookie Inspiration, Lone Star Regional Highest Rookie Seed, Lone Star Regional Gracious Professionalism Award, and World Championship Division Finalist (Archimedes Award).
Exploding Bacon, which was pulled together only about two weeks before this year’s competitions began, is approximately the 15th-ranked team in the world.
Ratings vary, but being anywhere close to that is impressive in a world that includes Japan and China and other such places where the kids are supposed be smarter than us and outwork our kids. That’s 15th among 1,185 teams representing 20,000 to 30,000 students.
Why don’t we all know more about these kids than we know about Michelle Wie, Dwight Howard and Britney Spears?
Website: For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology
FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) is a multinational non-profit organization, that aspires to transform culture, making science, math, engineering, and technology as cool for kids as sports are today.
Editorial: Solving the science problem
When only 47 percent of Martin County science students are performing at or above grade level, and the district still beats the state average, Florida has a problem.
Indian River County’s passage rate on the FCAT science battery was 36 percent — good enough for a top-20 ranking in the state — and St. Lucie County came in below the 34 percent state average with a lowly 28 percent.
The latest FCAT results confirmed what lagging scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress have shown: science instruction continues to languish in too many of America’s public schools.
“How many more wake-up calls do we need?” asks John Castellani, president of the Business Roundtable, a corporate advocacy group.
…
If, as school districts say, good science teachers are hard to recruit and retain, maybe instructors should be paid more than, say, P.E. teachers. It’s called the law of supply and demand.
…
It’s not encouraging to learn from the NAEP exam that Florida students had difficulty gathering information from basic graphs and diagrams, didn’t understand concepts involving the solar system and failed to grasp fundamental cause-and-effect relationships.
EUSTIS — Rose Sedely hears a lot of misconceptions in the classroom.
“I’m teaching second-graders this week about solid, liquid and gas,” Sedely said. “When I ask for an example of gas I hear, ‘It’s what you put in your car.’ And I have to explain that ‘gas’ is an abbreviation for the word ‘gasoline.’ Gasoline is a liquid, it’s not a gas.”
Sedely is the science-lab teacher at Eustis Heights Elementary School, where she has taught for 13 years.
Recently she was chosen from nearly 2,000 educators nationwide by the U.S Department of Education’s Teacher-to-Teacher Training Corps — an outreach effort supporting America’s teachers. She will be part of a team of 100 presenters that will conduct summer workshops in 14 locations throughout the United States. These two-day workshops will offer a variety of topics to assist teachers in the classroom.
My sincere congratulations go out to Sedely. She teaches right here in the area I live in! That’s something to be proud of!
Judge in Dover case still fighting
HARRISBURG - U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III could have taken the safe route and retreated to the privacy of the courthouse after issuing his landmark ruling in December against intelligent design. Most judges are loath to go public about their cases at all, let alone respond to their critics.
But Jones - angered by accusations that he had betrayed the conservative cause with his ruling, and disturbed by the growing number of politically motivated attacks on judges in general - came out from his chambers swinging.
“I didn’t check my First Amendment rights at the door when I became a judge,” Jones said in a recent interview.
…
“I’ve found a message that resonates,” he said. “It’s a bit of a civics lesson, but it’s a point that needs to be made: that judges don’t act according to bias or political agenda.”
…
And an e-mail death threat that Jones received shortly after the Dover ruling caused him to seek U.S. Marshal’s Service protection for the first time.
“Judges are really unnerved by this,” Jones said. “My wife couldn’t walk the dog without a marshal walking beside her in the days after case was decided.”
He wants to remind audiences, he said, that the judicial branch was not designed to react to public opinion as the executive and legislative branches were.
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