Florida Citizens for Science is proud to present the culmination of months of very hard work: a draft of Science Standards for the state of Florida! You can find a pdf copy for download at https://www.flascience.org/FCSstandards.pdf .
Here is a portion of the introductory letter found in the standards that explains why FCS undertook this monumental task.
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In light of the review and revision of public school science education standards planned later in 2007 and 2008 by the Florida Department of Education, the FCS Board of Directors determined that drafting a new set of science standards would be of service to the community at large. We intend that the draft standards that follow in this document be used as a starting point for discussion about both the impending revision process and the continuing evolution of the Florida Sunshine State Science Education Standards as we proceed in the 21st Century. While the standards are only one aspect of science education in Florida, they will influence all other aspects of science education—textbook selection, classroom teaching and high-stakes FCAT testing—for the next ten years.
We also hope that the adoption of rigorous, scientifically advanced public school standards will encourage the state colleges of education to strengthen their training of prospective science teachers.
The committee that undertook this significant work, chaired by Phyllis Park Saarinen, is composed of both teachers and non-teachers. The members of the FCS Board of Directors Standards Revision Committee and the Standards Review Subcommittee that reviewed the draft are listed below. You may note that the reviewers, some of whom made substantive changes in arrangement and content, are active and retired science teachers at the elementary, middle school, high school and college levels. As a group, they spent hundreds of hours on the review and have contributed significantly to the quality of this draft. Their experience in Florida schools is invaluable to the orientation and ‘teachability’ of these standards.We are grateful to them and acknowledge the importance of their contributions.
We have endeavored to compose the best possible standards by starting with the highest nationally rated standards currently adopted and successfully applied. We therefore drew upon California and Virginia standards, ranked first and second, respectively, in the Thomas B. Fordham Institute report “State of State Science 2005.†We have used aspects of each of these sets of standards to ensure that the draft standards herein proposed for Florida include the following elements:
* Standards content is scientifically accurate and current.
* Grade level expectations are clear and concise.
* Emphasis is on the scientific process as a means of learning how to solve problems.
* Student learning proceeds from fact to conceptual theory and acknowledges students’ intellectual development and mathematical skills.
* More rigorous material is included in honors courses.
* Laboratory safety is important to making science education a positive experience.
First, I want to congratulate all persons who cared enough about science education to work on the FCS science standards. I have not looked at them carefully enough to comment on them but what I have seen so far is encouraging. Second, I want to raise a question about the use of Virginia’s standards as one of two model state standards. The Fordham Fdn. report (2000) gives Virginia a grade of “D” on both its “Evolution” standards and its overall science standards. Also, the Educational Projects in Education group (publisher of Education Week) gave Virginia a score of 5 out of a possible 10 on its standards. This is not meant to be a criticism of FCS standards because as I said I have not looked at them carefully enough as yet. It just seems curious that you would hold up Virginia’s standards as a model.
Sincerely,
Ron Good
Professor Emeritus, LSU (1987-’02) and FSU (1968-’86)
In response to the above comment, Phyllis Saarinen, who chaired our science standards committee, had this to say:
Dear Professor Good,
The Fordham documents accessible on their website in Sept/Oct 06, which
we used, rated Virginia with an A and placed them number 2 behind
California. In reviewing Virginia’s content standards, our committee
(dominated by science teachers) saw many aspects of the organization and wording, especially an emphasis on understanding and learning through experimentation and observation, that we wanted in Florida standards. The scientific content of our original draft was based largely on
California’s standards. By the time our review committees (almost all
senior science teachers and primarily PhDs) were finished with it, the
content was well massaged and in some cases (earth sciences, high school
biology and chemistry) substantially revised.
There is still some debate within our board about the exact treatment of
energy definitions in the high school chemistry and physics standards,
but otherwise, I think what we have published is a good starting point
for the state–or, more realistically, a good document against which to
compare the product of the FDOE standards revision process.
Thank you for your interest and contribution
Phyllis