OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES OF INCORPORATING EARTH AND SPACE SCIENCES INTO THE NEXT GENERATION SCIENCE STANDARDS

The Next Generation Science Standards present a great opportunity for incorporating modern geosciences into the K-12 curricula of the majority of U.S. schools. This presents several opportunities as well as challenges. So far, 13 states and Washington, D.C., have adopted the NGSS in full, accounting for about 30% of the nation’s students. In addition, four states (Massachusetts, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and West Virginia), accounting for another 5% of U.S. students, have adopted new state science standards that are adapted from the NGSS, each in different ways. In addition, there are a large number of independent school districts, accounting for at least and additional 35% of the nation’s students, that are in the process of designing curriculum aligned to some degree with the NGSS. These are in states that have either not yet adopted the NGSS or likely will never adopt the NGSS (at a state-wide level). This presents a challenge to the geosciences, because the level of geoscience content will greatly vary depending upon the school it is taught in. The NGSS present the geosciences with a significant emphasis on Earth Systems Science, particular as it relates to climate systems and human impacts on systems, but most K-12 teachers have not had exposure to the geosciences in these contexts, and will require significant professional development. In addition, the inclusion of a full year of geoscience content in high school (in addition to a year for middle school), presents another curricular challenge, as most schools have never taught this amount of geoscience to all of its students. The NGSS also emphasize learning through a set of 8 different practices, many involving the direct analysis and interpretation, often in a quantitative way, with real data and evidence, and while there are great opportunities here, the implementation will be difficult. There are several different models for incorporating the geoscience content in high school, and different districts are likely to vary greatly in its implementation. Nonetheless, the opportunities presented by the NGSS are significant, as it will provide the majority (at least 2/3) of U.S. students to modern, relevant, transdisciplinary, quantitiative, systems-oriented geosciences in high school for the first time.