NCSE Evolution and Climate Education Update for 2015/03/20
Submitted by Peter Burns on Fri, 2015-03-20 14:40.
National Center for Science Education
(by NCSE Deputy Director Glenn Branch)
Dear friends of NCSE, The latest from Wyoming. Evolution and climate change in a proposed new set of science standards are provoking controversy in South Dakota. And a new issue of Reports of the NCSE.
WHAT'S NEW WITH WYOMING'S SCIENCE STANDARDS? The Wyoming state board of education voted on March 17, 2015, to return to the task of adopting new science standards, according to Wyoming Public Media (March 17, 2015) -- but a proposal to adopt the Next Generation Science Standards outright was rejected. Instead, the board will reconvene a committee of science educators which, after eighteen months of review, recommended the adoption of the NGSS in 2014. "The group will be asked to consider new information" before making a new recommendation. The board was previously forbidden, by a footnote in the state budget for 2014-2016, to use state funds for "any review or adoption" of the NGSS. The treatment of climate change in the standards was cited as the reason for the footnote. The legislature's blockage of the NGSS was widely condemned by the state's scientists, educators, and newspapers, and the board eventually declined to develop a new set of science standards independent of the NGSS. The footnote was repealed in March 2, 2015, when House Bill 23 was signed into law. The new law directs the board to "independently examine and scrutinize any science standards proposed or reviewed as a template" for Wyoming's state science standards. For the story from Wyoming Public Media, visit: http://wyomingpublicmedia.org/post/wyoming-board-education-moves-science-standards-forward And for NCSE's previous coverage of events in Wyoming, visit: http://ncse.com/news/wyoming OPPOSITION TO SCIENCE STANDARDS CONTINUES IN SOUTH DAKOTA "The debate over choosing standards for science education in South Dakota's public schools has become a divisive battleground with a clear split between science professionals who strongly support the new standards and opposing parents who disbelieve climate change and evolution," reports the Rapid City Journal (March 17, 2015). At the third of four public hearings on a new set of science standards for the state, one testifer described climate change and evolution as "fringe ideas" and suggested that the schools ought not to be advocating for or against them. Similar comments were heard at the second hearing in November 2014, as NCSE previously reported. But "more than twice as many science teachers, researchers[,] and scientists" testified in favor of the standards, including Julie Olson, a high school science teacher and president of the South Dakota Science Teachers' Association, who commented, "I am fully in support of the adoption of these standards." Following a final public hearing in May 2015, the board is expected either to adopt the standards at its May 18, 2015, meeting, or to "direct the department to further revise them for possible final approval at the board’s July 27 meeting in Rapid City," according to the Journal. The standards would be in use in the 2017-2018 academic year. For the story in the Rapid City Journal, visit: http://rapidcityjournal.com/news/local/science-ed-standards-become-a-battleground/article_541d142d-d60a-527b-a884-6d8af99ebc9a.html And for NCSE's previous coverage of events in South Dakota, visit: http://ncse.com/news/south-dakota RNCSE 35:2 NOW ON-LINE NCSE is pleased to announce that the latest issue of Reports of the National Center for Science Education is now available on-line.The issue -- volume 35, number 2 -- contains Nicholas J. Matzke's review-essay of Alan de Queiroz's The Monkey's Voyage, Herman Mays's "Speaking Out Against Climate Change Denial in West Virginia," and Mark Terry's "An Interdisciplinary Approach to Evolution Education." And for his regular People and Places column, Randy Moore discusses the biologist Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire. Plus a host of reviews of books on the history of biology: Walter H. Conser Jr. reviews Monte Harrell Hampton's Storm of Words, Tina Gianquitto reviews Kimberly A. Hamlin's From Eve to Evolution, J. David Hoeveler reviews David N. Livingstone'sDealing with Darwin, John Holmes reviews J. David Pleins's In Praise of Darwin, Sara B. Hoot reviews Tim M. Berra's Darwin and his Children, Christoph Irmscher reviews Tina Gianquitto and Lydia Fisher's collection America's Darwin, John M. Lynch reviews Paul Johnson's Darwin: Portrait of a Genius and The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Darwin and Evolutionary Thought, Matthew Morris reviews Bradley J. Gundlach's Process and Providence, and Charles H. Smith reviews James T. Costa's Wallace, Darwin, and the Origin of Species. All of these articles, features, and reviews are freely available in PDF form from http://reports.ncse.com. Members of NCSE will shortly be receiving in the mail the print supplement to Reports 35:2, which, in addition to summaries of the on-line material, contains news from the membership, a regular column in which NCSE staffers offer personal reports on what they've been doing to defend the teaching of evolution, a regular column interviewing NCSE's favorite people, and more besides. (Not a member? Join today!) For the table of contents for RNCSE 35:2, visit: http://reports.ncse.com/index.php/rncse/issue/current/showToc For information about joining NCSE, visit: http://ncse.com/join WHAT'S NEW FROM THE SCIENCE LEAGUE OF AMERICA Have you been visiting NCSE's blog, The Science League of America, recently? If not, then you've missed: * Minda Berbeco finding hope in a report on a decline in carbon dioxide emissions: http://ncse.com/blog/2015/03/climate-change-hope-delusion-0016234 * Stephanie Keep reviewing a HHMI film on natural selection and adaptation: http://ncse.com/blog/2015/03/classroom-with-stephanie-minda-mice-andwell-more-mice-0016229 And much more besides! For The Science League of America, visit: http://ncse.com/blog Thanks for reading. And don't forget to visit NCSE's website -- http://ncse.com -- where you can always find the latest news on evolution and climate education and threats to them. -- Sincerely, Glenn Branch Deputy Director National Center for Science Education, Inc. 420 40th Street, Suite 2 Oakland, CA 94609-2509 510-601-7203 x303 fax: 510-601-7204 800-290-6006 branch@ncse.com http://ncse.com Check out NCSE's new blog, Science League of America: http://ncse.com/blog Read Reports of the NCSE on-line: http://reports.ncse.com Subscribe to NCSE's free weekly e-newsletter: http://groups.google.com/group/ncse-news NCSE is on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter: http://www.facebook.com/evolution.ncse http://www.youtube.com/NatCen4ScienceEd http://twitter.com/ncse NCSE's work is supported by its members. Join today! http://ncse.com/join
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