NEXT UP IN THE CLASSROOM

Eastern Carver County Schools science teachers are at work setting up new standards for the 2022-23 school year.

PHOTO COURTESY OF EASTERN CARVER COUNTY SCHOOLS

SCIENCE STANDARDS

set to change in District 112

Sequence of study will adjust in middle and high school classrooms

BY ERIC KRAUSHAR

The days of the chalk dust cloud from clapping erasers outside are a thing of a past in most classrooms. How students receive instruction from teachers has evolved as technology has changed.

Science education is evolving as well, and with standards within the subject up for revision, a practice the Minnesota Department of Education requires of districts every decade, Eastern Carver County Schools science teachers are at work on setting up new standards for the 2022-23 school year.

“For middle school, in sixth grade we used to teach Foundations of Physics & Chemistry, but with the new state standards we will be teaching Earth and Space Science in sixth grade and moving Physical Science to eighth grade. Seventhgrade content will remain life science,” said Mary Jo Nairn, sixth-grade science teacher at Chaska Middle School West.

High school students at Chaska and Chanhassen will also see a sequence change, said Chris Lenius, science teacher at Chaska High School.

“The most obvious change people will see at Chaska and Chanhassen high schools is our new sequence of required courses. Since the last revision in 2009, our 9th-, 10th-, 11th- grade sequence has been Physics, Chemistry and Biology, in that order. But starting with the current eighth-graders, when they’re in ninth grade they will take Environmental Science, in 10th grade they will choose between Chemistry and Physics, and in 11th grade they will take Biology,” he said.

CHANGE IS GOOD

Nairn feels hands-on and activity-based instruction with sixth-graders is an important way to introduce them to science learning in the classroom. She said it is about experiencing things, and talking through what they are learning.

“One of the things I tell students at the beginning of the year is ‘If I’m the only one talking, I’m the only one learning.’ Meaning that I encourage talking as we learn — asking each other questions, arguing about answers, taking risks to try out new ideas and new learning, and defending what we think with evidence,” Nairn said.

So, how will Nairn incorporate new standards into her classroom instruction?

“For me, the biggest difference might be more open-ended unanswered questions at the beginning of units and using tools like whiteboards as they create models of their thinking and then revise them as they learn. We don’t ever learn it all at once anyway, we start with what we think we might know and then layer on more and more as we learn. Our first answers are rarely our ‘right’ answers, but activate our thinking for learning,” Nairn said.

Lenius said the way high school students will learn science will adapt as well.

“The new Minnesota standards, like science standards in most states, are based on the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). The NGSS emphasizes connections between different areas of science as well as ‘science and engineering practices’ — the ways that scientists and engineers approach understanding the world. These new standards are much less about memorizing facts and more about thinking, analyzing, evaluating, and creating,” Lenius said.

The new science standards take a whole classroom approach to who the instruction benefits.

“They’re designed not just to prepare a small number of students to become professional scientists. They’re designed to help all students learn critical thinking skills and understand that science is a way of finding out how the world works,” Lenius said.

THE FIVE E’S

These new standards, developed by Teaching and Learning leadership in collaboration with teachers within the science department, are working with a “Five E” structure for lesson planning. They are: Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate and Evaluate. “Throughout a unit we will weave in and out of these practices to help students get a firm grasp of the science concepts they are learning. We want them to be fully engaged, constructing their knowledge through discussion and activities. I hope that this will ensure that their learning is deep and long-lasting,” Nairn said.

District 112 works within the state standards to identify what is most essential for students to learn and understand. These are called Power Standards.

According to the District 112 website, “Power standards are those pieces of information a student should know when they complete a class. Teachers spend most of their instructional teaching and assessing time on these standards because it is important for all students to learn them.”

While in with the new, and out with the old, like the chalkboard to the smartboard, change is welcomed by teachers. Both Lenius and Nairn agree, great things are happening in the district.

“Great things our science teachers and students are doing and will do in the future,” Lenius said.

“Th ey’re designed not just to prepare a small number of students to become professional scientists. Th ey’re designed to help all students learn critical thinking skills and understand that science is a way of fi nding out how the world works.”

Chris Lenius

Chaska High School science teacher

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