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Tuesday, April 9, 2013

New science standards call for teaching climate change and more - latimes.com

New science standards call for teaching climate change and more - latimes.com:


New science standards call for teaching climate change and more





The politically touchy topic of climate change will be taught more deeply to students under proposed new national science standards released Tuesday.

The Next Generation Science Standards, developed over the last year by California and 25 other states in conjunction with several national scientific organizations, represent the first effort in some 15 years to transform the way science is taught in million of classrooms. The multi-state consortium is proposing that students learn fewer standards more deeply and not merely memorize information but understand how scientists actually investigated and gathered it. 

“What’s important here is that the standards will give students a deep understanding of how science and scientists actually work,” said Phil Lafontaine, a California Department of Education official who has helped spearhead the development of the new standards. “It’s not just what we know but how we