Changes Afoot In

Science Teaching/Testing

By Laurie Borst

In an effort to increase science literacy among all students, the Connecticut State Department of Education has rewritten its Science Frameworks.

The frameworks provide guidelines for schools and teachers to ensure a comprehensive curriculum is covered in classrooms.

Traditionally, ninth graders take earth science. In the past, this course would cover the formation of the planet, rocks and minerals, plate tectonics, etc. The new frameworks call for an integrated earth science course. This will combine some of the traditional coursework, i.e., rocks and minerals, with some physical science, energy, and the environment.

“This is aimed at increasing science literacy for all students,” said Karoline Baumgartner, a ninth grade science teacher at Newtown High. “Not all students will take four years of science.”

“Our tenth graders take biology, which had been focused on the cell and what happens at the molecular level,” Mrs Baumgartner continued. “That is changing to bring in an ecological component.”

This move toward increasing science literacy is reflected in the addition of science to the Connecticut Mastery Tests (CMT). And the State Department of Education has revamped the CAPT, the Connecticut Academic Performance Test, which is administered to sophomores across the state.

The CAPT had been structured as a one-time lab activity that students were tested on after completing the activity. The lab did not necessarily reflect that work being taught at the time.

This has been changed to five labs and five associated research activities that are embedded in the curriculum. Three labs and three activities are included in the ninth grade curriculum and two of each are included in the tenth grade.

The five areas are Energy Transformations, Chemical Structures and Properties, Global Interdependence, Cell Chemistry and Biotechnology, and Genetics, Evolution, and Biodiversity. The CAPT that is given will address one of those five topics.

For more information, visit the website state.ct.us/sde/dtl/curriculum.