Atlas of Science Literacy
Mapping K-12 Learning Goals
| In its 1989 report Science for All Americans, Project 2061 provided a clear vision of science literacy, portraying what all high-school graduates should know and be able to do in science, mathematics, and technology. Since then, the project has been developing tools that educators can use to help their students achieve those ideals. One of these, Benchmarks for Science Literacy, identifies specific learning goals for grade ranges K-2, 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12 to suggest reasonable progress toward adult science literacy. |
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Conceptual Connections
Benchmarks for Science Literacy is intended to help educators design a K-12 curriculum--one that makes sense to them and addresses the science literacy goals expressed in Science for All Americans. But the relatedness among important concepts in science, both within and between grade ranges, is only implied in Benchmarks.
To help educators gain insight into the connections among benchmark ideas, Project 2061 is developing the Atlas of Science Literacy, a collection of linked maps that depict how students might grow in their understanding and skills toward particular science literacy goals. These maps display not only the sequence of benchmark ideas that lead to a goal, but also connections across different areas of science, mathematics, and technology, and how ideas come together in sophisticated understanding.
The initial print volume of the Atlas of Science Literacy will include approximately 50 maps depicting K-12 growth of understanding in a variety of science literacy topics, including, for example, gravity, evolution and natural selection, the structure of matter, and the flow of matter and energy in ecosystems. Each map will indicate links to related maps in the set and will be accompanied by brief descriptions of the science literacy topic at hand and relevant text from Science for All Americans and Benchmarks. Eventually, a CD-ROM version of the Atlas will allow users to move conveniently between connected maps and will provide hypertext links that direct the user to research and other information.
Improved Teaching and Learning
The Atlas is a valuable professional development tool for teachers, who can use the maps to gain a sense of where their instruction fits into the larger picture of students' K-12 science education--where ideas are coming from and where they are going next. And by studying all benchmarks related to a particular idea, teachers can improve their own understanding of the concepts they teach. The maps can also provide the basis for discussions and collaboration among teachers at different grade levels and across subjects.
An awareness of connections among subjects helps educators to prepare students for the increasingly complex ideas that they will encounter as they progress toward science literacy. Familiarity with earlier benchmarks will help teachers to decide if students have the prerequisite ideas to comprehend a new topic. Similarly, knowing what students will be learning in later grades can guide teachers' decisions about what to teach now. By emphasizing connections among ideas and building on what has already been learned, teachers can better help students to understand and retain important concepts.
Materials developers and curriculum planners, too, will find the Atlas of Science Literacy useful. The graphic representation can help developers to justify the grade placement of concepts and activities in their textbooks and materials and to notice when they are out of place. And an entire K-12 curriculum planned with the relationships among benchmarks in mind will provide a better-paced and more interdisciplinary progression of subjects and courses.
A print version of the Atlas of Science Literacy is scheduled for publication by early 2001, with a CD-ROM version to follow.