On 6 August 2015, the Iowa State Board of Education adopted a new set of Iowa Core Science Standards. These standards are the Performance Expectations of the national Next Generation Science Standards. They are grade specific for grades K-8 and are clustered for grades 9-12. View the Iowa Core Science Standards here.
Students benefit when we simultaneously target standards from several disciplines. Read and learn about the Iowa Core Literacy, Mathematics, Social Studies, and 21st Century Skills Standards.
The gist of the new standards is that students will shift from “learning about” to “figuring out” scientific concepts and or solving problems. This statement should be guiding all we do…
ICEC supports efforts to align and enhance programs of naturalists and other non-formal educators so they will directly support the new grade specific standards.
- Bookmark to help us get started. PDF of four bookmarks designed to print on 11×17 paper.
- Beetles provides three types of resources for field instructors: Student activity guides, how-to videos for select student activities, and additional instructor support materials. Sign up on their mailing list to find out when they post new stuff!
- The NextGenScience website is a great resource. Iowa standards are based upon these standards. Iowa Board of Education adopted the performance expectations
- From the National Wildlife Federation blog! Six key reasons the new Next Generation Science Standards are great news for environmental education – look at numbers 4 and 6!
- Tips for Non-formal Science Educators Working with Classroom Teachers – Adapted from the New Jersey Students Learning Standards for Science by Phyllis Anderson!
During the summer of 2016, groups of naturalists, teachers, and Area Education Agency (AEA) science consultants collaborated to develop examples of this work. This work was shared at Spreading our Wings with Science Standards, our ICEC 2017 winter workshop, and is now available online.
Winter Workshop 2019 looked at STEM and environmental education with a dive into data with authentic applications.
Winter Workshop 2020 explored Iowa’s phenomenal natural resources. See this Google Site that is a product of this workshop.