Journal of the Korean earth science society (한국지구과학회지)

The Korean Earth Science Society (한국지구과학회)
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Curriculum Reform Movement of Science Education in the US: A Case of Earth Science Curriculum

  • Park, Do-Yong (Department of Curriculum and Instruction, Illinois State University)
  • Published : 2006.12.30
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Abstract

The United States curriculum reform movement has recently started in each area of science education. The initiatives on curriculum reform stem from a notion that the low rate of science curricula offered in schools has been a serious problem. The schools in the United States are not only facing a lack of offerings within science curricula but also low enrollment in science courses, especially in physics, chemistry, and earth science. This trend resulted in low performances on international achievement tests including TIMSS and PISA. This paper introduces the efforts to solve existing problems through curriculum reform; including ChemCom, BioCom, EarthComm, and Active Physics. In this paper, a discussion is presented to show how the curricula can help address the status quo in science education. More specifically, this paper focuses on curriculum reform in high school earth science (EarthComm), providing a closer look at the scope and sequence of the reform movement. EarthComm was chosen because it was released based on the development of the National Science Education Standards (NRC, 1996). Consequently, EarthComm became a curriculum that espoused the visions of the Standards, which has been guiding the reform of the US curriculum. At the end of this paper, two research outcomes of the EarthComm curriculum implementation in schools are discussed in terms of student learning and differences from conventional curricula.

Keywords

References

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