NSF and K12 Reform 

Bob Tinker, The Concord Consortium, August 4, 2006 

The central problem in science education is the poor performance of pre-college students. We know how to improve this: create innovative, research-based curricula and provide teacher professional development based on these materials. We do not need fundamental research in learning, a massive teacher recruitment program, or motivational awards. What is needed is to enrich what is going on in classrooms with better materials, more technology, and better-prepared teachers. This could be accomplished within the current NSF education budget by changing priorities and coordinating grantees.

NSF Funding for K12 Reform

The total request NSF funding for 2007 is $6,020M, up 7.9% from the 2006 budget (source: AAAS). Of this, almost 13.6% is in the Education and Human Resources division, a total of $816M, which is up by 2.5% from last year but down 20% from the 2004 budget in real terms. In addition, research funding from other divisions often include education, so the total education funding is more. It would not be inaccurate to claim that the NSF is spending about a billion dollars annually on science education. It is important, however, to avoid being complacent about this investment, because very little of this funding is being used to address the crisis in pre-college science education. The funding is spent on a broad portfolio of projects that each appears to be sensible and well meaning, but fail to impact K12 classroom practice.

Many science research projects include a small percentage for education, perhaps 5% of the total budget. These are often very low quality, “feel good” efforts undertaken by scientists who are not well versed in educational research and development. A typical educational program in a research project involves assigning a science graduate student to create an educational web page, teach some classes, post some lessons, or engage some teachers in the funded research. The thinking behind such programs is that the presence of scientists will greatly improve educational practice. This is a myth (see: http://www.nationalacademies.org/rise/backg2a.htm). Efforts of this sort will not contribute significantly to the crisis in science education.

“A concise summary of [the last 100 years of science] is that atoms and molecules are 85% of physics, 100% of chemistry and 90% of modern molecular biology,” says Nobel Prize winner Leon Lederman, and, he contends, there is an urgent need to revise secondary science curriculum to reflect this reality. What is needed is a “Physics First” curriculum, which involves switching the secondary science sequence from biology-chemistry-physics to physics-chemistry-biology.

But simply changing the order is not enough. Most PCB curricula offer a simplified traditional physics course followed by standard chemistry and biology courses. For the new sequence to benefit learning, the basic physics of atoms and molecules needs to be introduced early so that chemistry can take advantage of these concepts. Similarly, biology needs to leverage student understanding of atomic-scale physics and chemistry to address key introductory molecular biology concepts.

Every teacher or administrator with whom we have communicated about these reforms has complained about the lack of appropriate curriculum materials addressing the science of atoms and molecules. Textbook publishers are eyeing the market, but the development of three new coordinated texts is expensive, so they are waiting. It is likely that many schools are dissuaded from implementing secondary science reform by the lack of appropriate materials.

The Molecular Workbench models of the atomic world can provide the missing content, allowing students to experience an otherwise inaccessible world and build mental models that can be used to understand and predict macroscopic phenomena. Student explorations of these models can lead to a good understanding of connections between atomic-scale events and those events that they can observe at the macroscopic scale.

There are hundreds of models that can be accessed at http://mw.concord.org. Tested units based on these can be found at http://molo.concord.org. Over the next year, we plan to adapt these to provide the content that will make Physics First far more effective.
Do you have experience with Physics First? Are you considering it? Do you think these models can help?