Supporting Goals-Based Learning
with STEM Outreach
Sofia
Kesidou, Ph.D.
Program Director
AAAS Project 2061
Mary Koppal
Communications Director
AAAS Project 2061
Originally published in the Journal
of STEM Education: Innovations and
Research,
Vol. 5 (2004), Issues 3 & 4, pp.
5-16.
Abstract
Drawing on knowledge and experience
gained through the study of K-12 science,
mathematics, and technology education
practices and efforts to reform them,
this article suggests several ways to
strengthen outreach efforts aimed at
students in the elementary grades. The
article begins with a description of
Project 2061, an education reform initiative
of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science that promotes
the goal of science literacy for all
students and the importance of coherent
and specific content standards to guide
K-12 teaching and learning. The authors
then recommend several strategies and
a number of resources that can help
those in the scientific and technological
community to develop outreach efforts
and materials that are aligned with
and support the goals that today’s
students and teachers are striving to
achieve.
In its latest update on the state
of U.S. science and engineering, the
National Science Board reports that
nearly all Americans agree on the importance
and value of science literacy in understanding
and dealing with the issues of the day
(1). However, performance by the nation’s
K-12 students in mathematics and science
as measured by the National Assessment
of Educational Progress (NAEP) tests
continues to be disappointing (2). Without
basic literacy in science, mathematics,
and technology, these young people will
not be prepared for tomorrow’s
jobs or for making decisions about health
care, national security, the environment,
and a range of other issues in which
science and technology play a key role.
While reforms in science, mathematics,
and technology education are underway
to address these problems, a great deal
more needs to be done throughout the
education system before significant
improvements in student achievement
can be realized.
As an important part of the system,
the scientific and technological community
has a vital role to play in reaching
out to education reform efforts and
encouraging young people to study and
pursue careers in science, technology,
engineering, and mathematics (STEM).
One such reform effort is Project 2061,
a long-term nationwide education reform
initiative of the American Association
for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
Project 2061 began its work in 1985,
the year Halley’s Comet was last
visible from Earth. Children just starting
school now will see the return of the
Comet in 2061—a reminder that
today’s education will shape the
quality of their lives as they come
of age in the 21st century
amid profound scientific and technological
change. Project 2061 has focused its
work on understanding what it takes
to help all students become literate
in science, mathematics, and technology
and on developing tools to help all
those engaged in this important endeavor.
In this article, our goal is to share
with JSTEM Education readers
some ideas and resources drawn from
our work at Project 2061 that can help
them develop outreach efforts that are
more relevant, effective, and rewarding.
In particular, we focus on identifying
resources and strategies that can be
used to enrich outreach efforts that
aim to supplement or enhance STEM content
for students in kindergarten through
6th grade, rather than on
efforts related to STEM careers. Our
recommendations below are drawn from
the standards- and research-based practices
that are driving reforms in today’s
science and mathematics classrooms.
AAAS’s Project 2061 and Science
Literacy
With its first publication Science
for All Americans (3), Project
2061 called attention to the knowledge
and skills that all citizens need so
that they can live productive and rewarding
lives in a society that is increasingly
shaped by science and technology. Drawing
on the work of expert panels representing
the major scientific and technical
disciplines, Science for All
Americans describes a science
literate person as one who:
- is familiar with the natural world.
- understands some of the key concepts
and principles of science.
- has a capacity for scientific ways
of thinking.
- is aware of some of the important
ways in which mathematics, technology,
and science depend upon one another.
- knows that science, mathematics,
and technology are human enterprises
and what that implies about their strengths
and limitations.
- is able to use scientific knowledge
and ways of thinking for personal and
social purposes.
This vision of science literacy emphasizes
the connections among ideas in the natural
and social sciences, mathematics, and
technology and avoids the artificial
boundaries that separate the traditional
curriculum into individual disciplines. Science
for All Americans has laid the
groundwork for Project 2061’s
ongoing research and development efforts
and for the nationwide science standards
movement of the 1990s.
To help students make progress toward
science literacy, Project 2061 next
published Benchmarks for Science
Literacy (Benchmarks),
which proposes learning goals for students
at the end of grades 2, 5, 8, and 12
(4). Developed in collaboration with
teams of educators in six diverse school
districts and with scientists and experts
on learning and curriculum design, Benchmarks reflects
the input of more than 1,300 individuals. Benchmarks provides
educators with sequences of specific
learning goals that they can use to
design a core curriculum, guiding decisions
about what content to include (or exclude),
when to teach it, and why. To help educators
as they rethink their curriculum, Benchmarks:
- describes levels of understanding
and ability that all students are expected
to reach on the way to becoming science
literate;
- concentrates on the common core
of learning that contributes to the
science literacy of all students while
acknowledging that most students have
interests and abilities that go beyond
that common core, and some have learning
difficulties that must be considered;
- avoids technical language used for
its own sake, in part to reduce sheer
burden, and in part to prevent vocabulary
from being mistaken for understanding;
- is informed by research on how students
learn, particularly as it relates to
the selection and grade placement of
the learning goals;
- encourages educators to recognize
the interconnectedness of knowledge
and to build these important connections
into their curriculum units and materials;
and
- includes knowledge of the nature
and history of science, mathematics,
and technology, an understanding of
common themes that cut across disciplines,
and the development of scientific habits
of mind as essential aspects of science
literacy.
Both Science for All Americans and Benchmarks have
been influential in national and state
education reform efforts. The National
Research Council’s National
Science Education Standards,
for example, acknowledges “its
indebtedness to the seminal work by
the American Association for the Advancement
of Science’s Project 2061” (5).
A study by SRI International found that
Project 2061’s work had an impact
on the day-to-day work of most state
education leaders and influenced the
development of nearly every state science
curriculum framework or standards-type
document (6). Along with Project 2061,
other national organizations have developed
content standards for other subject
areas, including the publication in
2000 of Principles and Standards
for School Mathematics produced
by the National Council of Teachers
of Mathematics (7) and Standards
for Technological Literacy: Content
for the Study of Technology produced
by the International Technology Education
Association (8).
In its current work, Project 2061
has focused on helping educators and
others make use of learning goals (a
general term for benchmarks or standards
that specify the content that students
are to learn) in their efforts to improve
curriculum materials, teacher education,
assessments, and other elements of the
K-12 education system. Project 2061
also works closely with the informal
science education community through
partnerships with science centers and
museums around the country.
Of particular interest to Project
2061 has been the role of curriculum
materials—including traditional
textbooks, stand-alone or supplemental
units, computer-based activities and
programs, and so on—as tools that
can support both teachers and students.
To gather baseline data on the extent
to which currently available science
and mathematics textbooks could be useful
in helping a wide range of students
learn some of the key ideas recommended
in national and state content standards,
Project 2061 conducted evaluative studies
of 44 middle and high school textbooks.
The studies looked at the most widely
used textbooks and at some non-traditional
textbooks that were fairly new to the
market. With the exception of a handful
of promising mathematics textbooks,
nearly all of the textbooks had many
weaknesses, including a lack of coherence
and focus on key learning goals, an
overemphasis on trivial details and
terminology at the expense of more in-depth
content, failure to develop students’ thinking
and reasoning skills, and inadequate
support for teachers in identifying
and correcting students’ misconceptions.
In science not a single textbook received
a satisfactory overall rating (9, 10,
11).
Drawing on the findings from these
and other studies and from the available
research on teaching and learning, we’ve
distilled three key recommendations
that we think will help the readers
of JSTEM Education place
their outreach efforts within the broader
context of education reform in science,
mathematics, and technology. At the
same time, we identify some useful resources—both
online and in print—that can help
put these recommendations into practice.
As a result, outreach efforts can be
designed to engage young audiences more
effectively and help them make progress
toward achieving important learning
goals. We’ve tried to recommend
steps that will provide the most lasting
benefit to developers of outreach activities
and materials and to the classrooms
that will be using them.
Recommendation #1: Align Your Outreach
Efforts to Relevant Content Standards
By specifying what students should
know and be able to do in each content
area and grade level, the standards
movement has been a major influence
on the reform of STEM education. With
the introduction of the No Child Left
Behind Act of 2002 (12), schools, teachers,
and students must now meet stringent
accountability measures that are tied
to those standards.
In this new environment, it is more
important than ever that outreach efforts
be well aligned with the relevant science
and mathematics learning goals. Achieving
this alignment is not as easy as it
might seem; many standards documents
are little more than checklists of concepts
and skills to be “covered.” To
be meaningful, alignment needs to go
beyond a key word or topic match. For
this reason, Benchmarks spells
out quite specifically the ideas that
students are expected to know and expresses
the ideas in language that is appropriate
to each grade band. Although written
to be as precise as possible, the learning
goals in Benchmarks still
need to be interpreted and clarified
before they can effectively guide the
design of an activity, experiment, demonstration,
lesson, or unit. To help think through
what this kind of alignment would look
like when applied to a particular outreach
activity or material (as well as to
textbooks and a wide variety of other
curriculum materials), here are some
questions to keep in mind:
Does the activity or material
address the actual substance of the
learning goal or just the topic? As
an example, consider the following
learning goal for students in grades
3-5 that relates to understanding the
nature of science and how scientists
work:
Clear communication is an essential
part of doing science. It enables scientists
to inform others about their work,
expose their ideas to criticism by
other scientists, and stay informed
about scientific discoveries around
the world. (4)
At first glance, it might seem that
any outreach activity that addresses
the topic of communication by providing
opportunities for students to work together
or to share information would be aligned
with this learning goal. Instead, the
goal actually expects students to understand
the essential role that clear communication
plays in scientific discovery. More
on-target activities might bring students
together as a team to investigate a
science question and then to reflect
on how sharing their data and information
helped their work along. To demonstrate
how much clear communication contributes
to their work, activities might even
include deliberate blocking of communication
so that students can see how their work
suffers as a result.
Does the activity or material
focus on the “big ideas” specified
in the learning goal rather than on
less important details? Consider
this learning goal for students in
grades 3 through 5:
The patterns of stars in the sky
stay the same, although they appear
to move across the sky nightly, and
different stars can be seen in different
seasons. (4)
Here students are expected to understand
that when any group of stars is observed
at different times over the course of
one night or on different nights, the
stars always have the same arrangement—they
always have the same relative positions
to one another. This arrangement is
consistent night after night, year after
year, and century after century even
though there may be times when parts
(or all) of the arrangement may not
be visible. Outreach activities or materials
that give students opportunities to
observe that stars within a group maintain
their relative positions and that groups
of stars maintain their positions relative
to other groups, even as they all appear
to move across the sky during the night,
are likely to be well aligned with this
learning goal. Efforts aimed at having
students know the names of constellations
or how many there are would not be aligned.
Does the activity or material
reflect the level of sophistication
of the learning goal? Consider
this learning goal for students in
kindergarten through 2nd grade:
Water left in an open container disappears,
but water in a closed container does
not disappear. (4)
In this example, K-2 students are
not expected to understand the mechanism
of evaporation, including molecules,
invisible vapor, or even the term “evaporation” itself;
it is enough to observe what happens
to the water in a sufficient variety
of contexts to see the pattern described
in the benchmark. Students are expected
to build on their observations in grades
3-5 to understand that when liquid water
disappears, it turns into a gas (vapor)
in the air, and in grades 6-8 to explain
evaporation in terms of invisibly small
molecules. In Project 2061’s Benchmarks,
decisions about the placement of learning
goals at particular grade levels are
based on cognitive and domain-specific
research and on teachers’ experience.
Useful summaries of much of this research
are included in a special chapter of Benchmarks.
Recommendation #2: Pay Attention
to What Students Are Thinking
Extensive research has shown that
even very young children have their
own ideas about almost every topic they
are likely to encounter. For example,
on the topic of “light,” some
children may identify light only with
its source or with its effects rather
than thinking of light as an entity
that travels in space. Rather than dismissing
these as merely “erroneous” beliefs
that can be easily corrected, it’s
important to understand that these are
powerful ways of thinking that affect
the way children are likely to interpret
and respond to the outreach activities
or materials being planned.
By being aware of these ideas and
beliefs and taking them into account
in their planning, outreach developers
will be able to ask better questions
and to provide more convincing evidence
about the validity and plausibility
of a scientific explanation. For example,
if students associate light only with
its source or effects, they are unlikely
to explain the direction and formation
of shadows in terms of an obstacle blocking
the passage of light but will merely
notice similarity of shape between object
and shadow, or say that the object hides
the light. Questions such as “what
is the path of light?” or “does
light move?” are not likely to
make sense to these students (13).
Benchmarks (4) is one
of several helpful sources of information
about the ideas that many students have
in specific topic areas: other resources
include Children’s Ideas
in Science (14) and Making
Sense of Secondary Science (15).
Project 2061 is currently developing
comprehensive summaries of findings
from learning research on student thinking.
They include descriptions of learners’ common
ideas and likely sources of these ideas,
as well as lists of questions or tasks
that can be used to elicit students’ thinking
and track their understanding. In some
cases, the research summaries include
not only descriptions of conceptual
but also of relevant cultural, epistemological,
or ontological prior knowledge that
may influence student learning. (See
Figure 1 for an example of a research
summary dealing with one of the ideas
that students often have related to
light. Additional examples can be found
on the Project 2061 Web site at http://test.p2061.org/curriculum/welcome.htm.)
Recommendation #3: Take Advantage
of Instructional Strategies That Work
Just as there are established methods
for making a presentation compelling,
persuasive, and memorable for professional
and other adult audiences, so too are
there strategies—supported by
research—for engaging young students
with ideas and helping them to understand
and retain the most important concepts.
In conducting our textbook evaluation
studies (4), we developed a set of criteria
for judging the quality of each textbook’s
instructional design. Derived from research
on effective teaching and learning,
these criteria can also provide some
insights on the kinds of activities
and materials being developing for outreach
in elementary level classrooms. Although
there are more than 20 criteria (Figure
2) that were applied to the textbooks
covered by our studies, we’ve
streamlined the process and provided
some questions below that highlight
the essence of the criteria that are
likely to be the most relevant to outreach
efforts designed for K-6 students. By
answering these questions in the context
of specific outreach activities and
materials—and modifying them as
needed—outreach developers can
add significant educational value to
their efforts.
If an activity involves a demonstration
or hands-on activity, does it use a
relevant phenomenon to help make an
important scientific idea plausible
to students? Will the activity
be comprehensible to students, given
their grade level and prior experiences?
Can students make the connection between
the phenomenon and the main idea in
a small number of steps and using reasoning
skills that are appropriate for their
age? Does the activity require complicated
and time-consuming set-up, calculations,
or other procedures that might distract
students from the most important ideas?
(See Figure
3 for an example of a phenomenon
that is often used to help students
understand the grades K-2 learning
goal that the sun appears to move slowly
across the sky (4). The example also
includes commentary from Project 2061
on strengths and weaknesses of this
phenomenon when used with students
at different grade levels.)
If an activity or material includes
representations of real-world objects
or events (for example, drawings, diagrams,
graphs, images, analogies and metaphors,
models and simulations, or role-playing),
are they accurate and likely to be
comprehensible to the student audience? Will
students be able to distinguish between
real-world objects or events and symbolic
entities? Does the activity or material
make clear which aspects of an object
or event are represented and which
are not?
Does the activity or material
include questions that can help students
make sense of what they have experienced
or read about? Are there questions
that can help introduce students to
the important scientific, mathematical,
or technical ideas or issues and relate
those to the scientific phenomena or
representations they have experienced
through the activity or material? Are
there questions that ask students to
explain their own ideas about the real-world
objects or events they’ve just
seen or experienced? Are the questions
likely to make sense to students who
have never studied a particular topic
and are not familiar with the scientific
vocabulary? For example, asking “What
do you think will happen if we let
go of this ball? Why do you think this
will happen?” is more comprehensible
to students who have not studied gravity
than asking “What is the effect
of gravity on this ball?” Are
there questions that encourage students
to relate their own ideas to the scientific
ideas?
Conclusions
The challenge for teachers and for
scientists and engineers who want to
support them is finding effective resources
that are well aligned with learning
goals. To help meet that need, Project
2061 is identifying, developing, and
making available a collection of resources
that can be used to create outreach
activities and materials that focus
on ideas that are important for science
literacy and that meet Project 2061’s
criteria for instructional quality.
Made possible by a grant from the National
Science Foundation (NSF), the collection
includes reference tools (e.g., summaries
of research on how students think about
natural phenomena and ideas in science)
that inform the work of curriculum materials
developers and teachers, and building
blocks (e.g., activities, photographs,
diagrams, sets of questions, and examples
of phenomena that demonstrate particular
scientific ideas) that can be incorporated
into outreach activities and materials.
Available online, the collection will
allow users to click on the text of
a learning goal and access the various
resources that are linked to it. Extensive
hyperlinks will relate resources to
each other.
Information about this and other Project
2061 activities can be found on our
Web site at www.project2061.org.
The site includes the full text of Project
2061’s Science for All Americans and Benchmarks
for Science Literacy (along with
many other Project 2061 publications).
The chapters on historical perspectives
and common themes may be especially
fruitful sources of ideas and inspiration
for planning outreach. For those who
would like more details on Project 2061’s
approach to the analysis of science
and mathematics curriculum materials,
the Web site also includes extensive
explanations of the analysis criteria
and examples drawn from a variety of
materials showing instances of meeting
and not meeting the criteria. Other
standards documents and a wealth of
additional background information on
science literacy, along with links to
the Web sites of more than 400 science
centers worldwide can be found at www.ScienceEverywhere.org,
a site developed in partnership with TryScience.org.
Taking advantage of the knowledge
and experience that already exists can
help make outreach efforts—whether
they involve classroom demonstrations,
experiments, and hands-on activities
or lesson plans, kits, booklets, software,
or other instructional materials—more
effective for the developer, for teachers,
and, most important, for the students.
See the references
for this article.
Kesidou, S. & Koppal, M. 2004. Supporting Goals-Based Learning
with STEM Outreach. Journal
of STEM Education: Innovations and
Research, 5 (2004), 5-16.
