FARMINGTON -- State officials continue to prepare for changes in what public school students are expected to know and do in science.
The state's new science standards will require shifts in how the subject is taught, said Catherine Mackey, who's providing training from the Arkansas Department of Education to science teachers across the state.
Schools
Schools joining Arkansas Advanced Initiative for Math and Science for 2016-17
• Concord
• Genoa Central
• Huntsville
• Mineral Springs
• Lincoln
• Paragould
• Stuttgart
Source: Kenneth James, president of initiative based at University of Arkansas at Little Rock
"High school is going to be the most difficult to change instruction," Mackey said.
Mackey and Michele Snyder, the department's science curriculum specialist, gave an update Thursday on the implementation and development of state standards in science during a monthly meeting of superintendents and top school administrators at the Northwest Arkansas Education Service Cooperative.
The meeting also included an announcement of a summer camp the Arkansas Advanced Initiative in Math and Science plans at the University of Arkansas for Advanced Placement students in Northwest Arkansas.
The new science standards will mean less lecturing and more hands-on activities and reflect an updated understanding of how students learn, Mackey said. The new science standards, adapted from the Next Generation Science Standards developed by 26 states, will ask for students to study science through themes, such as cause and effect; scale, proportion and quantity; and systems.
Standards for the state's physics course push for students to learn and memorize facts, but the new standards ask students learn while using science concepts, Mackey said. One expectation in the Next Generation Science Standards is for students to understand the relationship between magnetism and electricity. Instead of memorizing facts and learning definitions, high school students will have to plan and conduct an investigation to show how an electric current produces a magnetic field.
The State Board of Education has adopted new science standards for kindergarten through eighth grade, Snyder said. The new standards will be implemented in kindergarten through fourth grade in August, followed by grades five through eight in August 2017.
High school science standards remain in development, but are expected to go to the State Board of Education this year, she said. The new high school standards are expected to change the science courses students are required to take to graduate high school, Snyder said. The three required courses in development are expected to be physical science, biology and a course that teaches foundational skills in chemistry and physics.
The new course combining chemistry and physics is expected to provide more students with an understanding of physics, a course that not enough students take, Mackey said.
"Physics is understanding the world," Mackey said.
Promoting Advanced Placement
The Arkansas Advanced Initiative for Math and Science is adding its eighth group of schools, which includes Huntsville and Lincoln high schools and five other high schools across the state, said Kenneth James, a former state education commissioner who is president of the initiative. The program is based at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.
The initiative plans a summer day camp for about 125 students July 18-22 at the University of Arkansas using a two-year $150,000 grant from the Walton Family Foundation grant, James told the superintendents. The nonprofit group piloted a similar camp last summer in Little Rock with a two-year $90,000 grant from the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation.
Priority will go to students taking Advanced Placement English literature, English language, biology, chemistry or calculus in the fall of 2016 who are from Farmington, Arkansas Arts Academy, Siloam Springs, Huntsville and Lincoln, James said. Registration is through Ginger Abernathy, who can be reached at [email protected] or (501) 683-7684.
The initiative began with a six-year grant totaling $13.2 million from the National Math and Science Initiative, which was funded primarily through Exxon Mobil Corp., James said. The grant expired in the 2012-13 school year.
The program initially reached more than 40 schools that were part of five cohorts, James said. Schools added since then now pay to participate. The cost is about $15,000-$20,000 a year, depending on how many teachers school districts involve. Schools also must commit to participating for three years.
The initiative also receives $450,000 annually in state funding, James said.
NW News on 02/05/2016