New Naperville curriculum gets back to 'ooh, ahh of science'
Science teachers at Naperville Central and Naperville North high schools are preparing to handle roughly double the number of chemistry students next year as a new science curriculum shifts the class from sophomore to freshman year.
Most of next year's sophomores still will need chemistry because they aren't taking it this year. But next year's freshmen will need chemistry, too, because they stand to be the first group to progress through the science classes in a new order: chemistry, biology, physics.
The new course track is part of a science curriculum developed to meet the Next Generation Science Standards, which were created by national science associations and educators in 26 states, including Illinois. School board members are expected to approve the curriculum, which encourages students to approach all scientific subjects through the practices used in engineering, during a meeting March 16.
Board member Suzyn Price said she loves the updated curriculum because it will involve hands-on instruction on important topics.
"I also love the engineering component of this because inherent in engineering is problem-solving," Price said. "I think it's a terrific integration of that into the curriculum as a whole."
Jayne Willard, assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction, said engineering techniques, such as asking questions, developing and using models and analyzing data, will be the thought process educators encourage students to use for all scientific problems.
"It's engaging in science through an engineering lens," Willard said.
In the classroom, that means students won't necessarily follow a long list of steps to complete a chemistry lab, said Katherine Seguino, instructional coordinator for science at Naperville Central High School. Instead, they will learn background about a certain chemical process, then be given the autonomy to develop an experiment to test it on their own. It's higher-level thinking and less rote memorization, she said.
"For a while, science has moved a little too far into facts and details. It got, unfortunately, away from some of the ideas of the discovery and the wonder and the 'ooh, ahh' of science," Seguino said. "Let's really get back into the engineering practices, the scientific practices, finding something that ties all of the sciences together."
Teachers and administrators have mapped out concepts that cross over from one topic to another, such as energy, matter, cause and effect, scale, proportion and quantity. Building an understanding of these concepts will help students gain a broad scientific knowledge as they progress from sixth through 11th grade, studying geology, weather, forces, matter, astronomy, evolution, the periodic table of elements, stars, chemical reactions, thermal energy, ecosystems, genetics, mechanics and more.
"In reality, science all melds together - it's just a matter of which one you're emphasizing at the time," Seguino said.
Teachers wanted to change the high school order of science classes because research has shown freshmen succeed better with a physical science such as chemistry than a life science such as biology, Seguino said. Pending school board approval, the new curriculum will begin to be implemented next year.