The science department and other PUSD faculty attended the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) Area Conference in Long Beach, CA from Dec. 4 to 6 to learn about the implementation of Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS).

“There’s a total shift that’s going to develop in the way teachers are going to teach their courses as well as how they’re going to assess their courses,” science department chair Glen Melnik said.

California adopted NGSS in September 2013. A total of 12 states and Washington, D.C. have adopted NGSS, and 26 states are actively promoting the program.

“It was supposed to be a regional conference, but people were coming from all over, Arkansas and every place, because this is a huge shift in what these standards are all about for science,” Melnik said.

The entire science department from the high school, the middle school and elementary schools administrations as well as Assistant Principle  Ginna Meyers, librarian Susan Stutzman and Director of Curriculum and Instruction Cheryl Wozniak attended the NSTA conference.

Attending the conference clarified the standards and introduced new concepts for standardization, including AP’s seven Science Practices and 10 cross-currents.

“It’s going to take a while for each individual teacher to figure it out,” Melnik said. “Although we are entrenched in our old ways, we see what they are trying to do and we say, ‘Yeah, this is what we always try to do anyway.’”

Because of the nature of the new standards and practices, questions were raised over how existing curriculums will implement these over the next three years.

“Once [states] adopt it, then they have to create a framework, like how exactly are they going to fit into the courses we have right now, and also how’s it going to fit into the AP testing,” Melnik said.

Some changes to the AP exams have already been made, such as in the AP Physics exam. Multiple choice sections, which now require two correct answers and a short explanation of the choices.

“We’re going to see how it’s going to be backed up by the publishers of textbooks, whether the publishers are going to rise to the occasion and give us materials that can help best meet these standards,” Melnik said.

Science teacher Marna Chamberlain, who teaches with a technique in which students design their own labs much like NGSS requires, said the conference affirmed that her own teaching method lives up to the new expectations.

“It’s nice to go and see that we’re totally right on par, if not, a little bit above where everybody is at,” Chamberlain said. “It put that stress of if we’re doing what we’re supposed to be doing on the backburner.”

For her, the conference also confirmed that science education is headed in the right direction.

“They had data from 15 years saying, ‘This is what we’ve been doing, and this is how our grades have improved,’” Chamberlain said. “I like that. I want to hear data. Don’t just tell me I should be doing this. Tell me why I should be doing this and show me some evidence for it. Give me a reason to maybe try something different.”

According to nextgenscience.org, the previous national Science Education Standards and Benchmarks for Science Literacy guides for state science curriculums are around 15 years old and are overdue for a change.

“In some ways it’s easier, in some ways it’s harder,” Melnik said, “You have to think more. I’d say probably less computational stuff and more thinking. It’s going to take a lot of work, a paradigm shift.”