Science Group Offers Guide for Learning

Remember all those hours spent memorizing the periodic table of the elements in science class?

Well, your time probably could have been better spent, according to a new set of science education guidelines.

They spell out what students should know and be able to do in science, math and technology at the end of grades 2, 5, 8 and 12.

The guidelines are explained in “Benchmarks for Science Literacy,” released Monday by the American Assn. for the Advancement of Science.

The premise: Less is more.

“The benchmarks show educators how to dramatically decrease the amount of materials being crammed into the heads of students around the country, crammed into the heads to be forgotten almost instantly,” said F. James Rutherford, director of AAAS’s Project 2061.

“There’s no sense memorizing the periodic chart and all parts of it if, in fact, you can’t turn that knowledge to work for you to understand issues of the day, the environment or the nature of the economy,” Rutherford said.

The guidelines say every student should be science literate upon graduation from high school. They also stress that students should be taught the relationship between science, math and technology and the world around them.

Bill Aldridge, executive director of the National Science Teachers Assn., said the state of science education is disastrous.

“So much of what’s done in schools focuses on facts and information, on separate disciplines and subject matter that is often unconnected,” he said.

The benchmarks on human development, for example, include the knowledge, by the end of Grade 2, that all animals have offspring, usually with two parents involved.

By Grade 5, students should know how the embryo develops, and by Grade 8, that it can be adversely affected by a mother’s diet, drug or alcohol abuse or smoking.

For Grade 12, the benchmarks include an understanding of the differentiation of cells, as well as the ethical questions raised by the use of artificial means to promote or facilitate pregnancy and to sustain or terminate life.