<p>
	<span class="float-left"><em>With the school year upon us, we thought it appropriate to delve into the science education millions of North American students are receiving. &nbsp;We asked two former <a href="/alumni_and_grad_fellows/#GradFellows">Au Sable graduate fellows</a> -- Jonathon Schramm, Assistant Professor of Sustainability and Environmental Education at Goshen College, and Sara Wyse, Assistant Professor of Biological Science at Bethel University -- who study science and environmental education to join &#39;The Conversation&#39; and discuss science education today. &nbsp;They&#39;ve chosen to take up two conversations. &nbsp;First, in <a href="http://ausable.org/news_and_resources/blog/the_conversation_new_science_standards#.UHWDYBXA-p0">Part 1</a> below, they discuss the forthcoming&nbsp;<a href="http://www.nextgenscience.org/">Next Generation Science Standards</a>, a set of science education standards developed by the National Research Council in consultation with 26 partner states that US states can voluntarily adopt. &nbsp;In Part 2, they&#39;ll discuss how to increase environmental literacy at Christian colleges.</em></span></p>
<hr />
<p>
	<img alt="" src="{filedir_5}Jonathon-Schramm-BioPhotoPlants-250pxl.jpg" style="width: 150px; height: 200px; float: right; " /></p>
<p>
	<strong>Jonathon Schramm:</strong>&nbsp;Sara, the days are cooling, the morning fogs are forming, and students are returning to high schools and college campuses across the nation. It&rsquo;s an exciting time to be involved in education, and a great time to reflect on what works well in our society&rsquo;s educational systems, and what doesn&rsquo;t. In both high school and college settings, it seems like there is abundant talk about reforming the way we teach, especially in the sciences. Not coincidentally, we are also facing unprecedented large-scale environmental issues such as global climate change, which have numerous connections to scientific knowledge as well as to our social and economic structures.</p>
<p>
	<strong><span class="float-left"><img alt="" src="{filedir_5}Headshot_Wyse-250pxl.jpg" style="width: 150px; height: 200px; float: right; " /></span>Sara Wyse:</strong>&nbsp;Jonathon, yes, the change in weather - and the series of phenologic activities that take place in the fall do certainly set the stage for the beginning of another academic year. &nbsp;The fall is almost more of a &quot;new year&quot; feeling for me than January, and provides a good time to think about goals and aims for the upcoming year. &nbsp;Having just come out of our faculty retreat, working with both new and returning faculty, I sense a desire and commitment to undergraduate education. &nbsp;My colleagues are passionate about their work, and excited to engage in conversations and hopefully subsequent application of research-backed classroom pedagogies. &nbsp;Seeing this commitment from my colleagues is encouraging to me, because, as you mentioned, we have been talking about changing the way we teach science in K-12 and college educations for years.</p>
<p>
	<strong>Jonathon:</strong>&nbsp;Knowing your background in both the sciences and educational research, I would love to hear your thoughts on some of this changing landscape. For instance, what is your take on the <a href="http://www.nextgenscience.org">Next Generation Science Standards</a>? It seems to me that one of the major new features of these proposed standards is emphasizing science practice on the same level as science content. I sometimes felt that although teaching students about how science works was always a part of standards, it often played second fiddle to the content. It seems clear from many studies of public knowledge about science that there are many misunderstandings about science as a process, and I&rsquo;m hopeful that a science curriculum which emphasizes depth of understanding over breadth of coverage might better prepare more of us as citizens for the coming challenges. Of course, maybe I&rsquo;m being na&iuml;ve here, since the standards haven&rsquo;t even been finalized and we&rsquo;re certainly a long ways from finalized curricula in schools. What do you think? Is this best practice?</p>
