CRS Need, Mission and History
Need for Change in Elementary Science Education
A Local Issue: “Science courses nearly extinct in elementary grades, study finds” -headline from San Francisco Chronicle, October 2007
A survey of 923 Bay Area elementary school teachers reported that about 80 percent said they spent less than an hour each week teaching science, including 16% of the total number who spent no time at all on science. Ten times as many teachers said they felt unprepared to teach science (41 percent) than felt unprepared to teach math or reading. As a result, fewer than half of Bay Area fifth-graders (47 percent) scored at grade level or above on the 2008 California Standards Test in science.
Echoes a National Issue: “Science should be as nonnegotiable a part of basic education as are language arts and mathematics.” - Taking Science to School, National Research Council, 2007
Local findings echo similar results from earlier reports calling for improved science education across the nation, “Rising Above The Gathering Storm” and the report of the National Science Board’s Commission on 21st Century Education in Science Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics in spring 2006. Meanwhile, teachers at under-resourced schools continue to struggle with ways to incorporate science into classrooms for children who are the least likely to have science experiences outside of school. While fighting the widening achievement gap between high income and low income students (National Center for Education Statistics, 2000 and 2003), teachers are also overwhelmed by the demands of high-stakes testing, and need professional development support to realize the “profound learning effects that well-designed, high quality science instruction can have.” (National Research Council, 2007).
Revealing a Powerful Opportunity to Engage Children in Active Learning: “My kids love science but I just don’t know how to fit it in.” -Oakland 4th grade teacher
The irony is that science, when taught using hands-on experiences dealing with real world problems, is one of the best ways to engage under-achieving students and build critical thinking skills for all students. Science fosters curiosity, allowing students to develop inquiry skills and apply math and communication skills they need to be successful students, adults, and citizens. Every day we speak to teachers who are eager to create lively science lessons but feel burdened by time-consuming commitments to subject-specific curriculum - and a lack of confidence.
- “My kids get math every day but science only once or twice a week – so they don’t remember it on the tests. Kids need to be flooded with science.” -Berkeley 5th grade teacher
- “Because of Open Court, we have to go out and find science and push it into the school site, and value it as part of the curriculum.” -Oakland principal
- “We just need someone to help us get started with science.” -Oakland 2nd grade (new) teacher
Our Mission
Our vision is a community of educators working together to excite all children about learning through the scientific exploration of the world around them. Community Resources for Science contributes to this vision by weaving connections between the needs of individual teachers and educational resources, while acting as a catalyst to improve the available resources in our community.
CRS History & Background
CRS was founded in 1997 by Nicki Norman and Anne Jennings in response to our personal experience with the barriers elementary teachers experience to doing science and awareness of the potential science resources in the Bay Area. The programs have evolved over the years in response to teachers’ changing needs and the guidance of ongoing evaluation and research projects.
The initial service model connecting teachers to existing resources has been enthusiastically received from the beginning, but this personal interaction identified additional help required to change teaching practice in a lasting way. By year two CRS was offering whole school workshops to help faculties work together on developing new skills and plans, while helping each teacher engage at their own pace. As we accumulated data about resources in the community and the range of needs at different stages of the teaching career, CRS has undertaken specific program and resource development to support the needs of our teacher constitutency, as well as research projects targeted at addressing barriers and strengthening the educational community.
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