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Highlighting the recent and
ongoing events of AAAS |
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A note from AAAS CEO, Alan Leshner
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Dear Colleagues,
AAAS has been instrumental in improving the quality of science education since 1962, when we established a Committee on Science Education to develop materials for students and teachers, beginning with kindergarten and grades one and two. In 1985, AAAS founded Project 2061 to help all Americans become literate in science, mathematics, and technology.
With its 1989 landmark publication Science for All Americans, Project 2061 set out recommendations for what all students should know and be able to do in science, mathematics, and technology by the time they graduate from high school. Benchmarks for Science Literacy, published in 1993, translated the science literacy goals in Science for All Americans into learning goals or benchmarks for grades K-12. Many of today's state and national standards documents have drawn their content from Benchmarks. These AAAS publications are the foundation for Project 2061's ongoing efforts to reform curriculum, instruction, and assessment. With recent publications like Atlas of Science Literacy and Designs for Science Literacy, Project 2061 continues to influence the direction of science education reform.
Broadening these initiatives internationally, Project 2061 materials have been translated into Spanish, Chinese, and Japanese. AAAS conducts yearly workshops for educators from Shanghai, participates in annual science education forums in many different countries, and has hosted delegations of educators from around the world who are interested in our approaches to science teaching and learning.
This year in the United States, we have been a leader in advocating the adoption of a framework of voluntary K-12 national standards for science education. In a 28 March editorial in Virginia’s Richmond Times Dispatch, noting that the nation’s governors and state school officers had proposed unifying standards in English and math for all students in American public schools, AAAS officials called for science standards also to be included. A 28 May editorial in Science urged the scientific community to support “a clear statement of learning goals for science that are standard across the United States.” Participating in a science education standards development effort, AAAS invited members to comment on a conceptual framework for next generation standards for K-12 science education released by the National Research Council in July. The framework will be revised based on input from the science and education communities and the public, and a final version will be released next year.
Also in July, AAAS once again organized the annual meeting of the Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program, established to train science, technology, engineering, and math K-12 teachers in high-need school districts. During the conference, experts described learning goals that will focus more on real-world skills and less on rote memorization, and urged educators to teach to the highest expectations that all students can succeed. (See News, below.)
A new generation of standards is the key to reinvigorating the skilled and innovative science and technology workforce that is critical to economic progress. As a member of AAAS, your support for this initiative is invaluable. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Alan I. Leshner, CEO, AAAS
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