U-46 to use new standards, resources in science education
Elgin Area School District U-46 will adopt new science resources to support a new curriculum being rolled out this fall at its 40 elementary schools and eight middle schools.
The curriculum better aligns with Illinois' Science Learning Standards that are based on Next Generation Science Standards. It outlines performance expectations for what students should know and be able to do by the end of certain grade levels.
"These new standards are rooted in the action of science," Marc Hans, U-46 coordinator of K-12 science, told the school board last week. "Students will actually be conducting scientific investigations."
Science teachers and experts from 26 states, including Illinois, developed the new standards based on the National Research Council's framework for K-12 science education. The Next Generation Science Standards emphasize deep understanding of scientific concepts, asking students to engage in scientific inquiry and create their own theories for how and why things work.
Illinois formally adopted its new science standards in February 2014, but school districts weren't required to implement them until this school year, Hans said.
District officials last week reviewed new instructional materials and resources for elementary and middle schools aligned with the new curriculum.
"When you look at all of the resources you are going to see some continuity in the variables of why we selected them," Hans said. "It is inquiry-based. It provides multiple learning opportunities for students to engage in hands-on science. Materials that are much more robust than what was used before. It gives teachers a really big leverage to bring science alive in the classrooms. We are seeing a conceptual shift in what science education is nationally."
The district's current elementary science resources are more than 13 years old and are text-based. The new materials include online and print resources, reproducible workbooks, lab kits for hands-on activities, and Next Generation science kits for extra activities bringing together elements of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), and nonfiction readers in English and Spanish for a variety of reading abilities, officials said.
A group of U-46 teachers who were early adopters evaluated and selected the new resources, said Emily Weber, third-grade teacher at Century Oaks Elementary School.
"The exploring science kits have everything that we need in them so we don't have to go shopping and spend money from our own budgets," she said.
Middle school students will have access to the same kinds of materials and processes scientists are using in the field, officials said.
Teachers will be trained on the new resources in May, during the summer and throughout the school year. The initial cost of instructional materials and training for elementary schoolteachers is roughly $790,000, and for middle schools is $3.3 million. The U-46 school board will vote on adopting these resources at its April 24 meeting.