Posted by EJB, a resident of another community, on Jul 13, 2009 at 10:31 am

V. interesting article.

Posted by Mike Laursen, a resident of the Monta Loma neighborhood, on Jul 14, 2009 at 11:09 pm

We're spending about $9000 per K-12 pupil. Why isn't that paying for more science education?

Posted by Parent, a resident of the Waverly Park neighborhood, on Jul 31, 2009 at 9:35 am

Our kids do receive Science instruction in elementary school. They use the Foss Science kits, which is a curriculum that provides hands-on, experiment-based science learning from first grade on. I always loved that program. My memory of science education was reading boring facts, and I hated it. The only good memories I have of science in elementary school were on the rare occasions when the teacher would demonstrate a cool concept and I could see it in action. This is what the kids get to do with Foss. They keep science journals, learn about the scientific process -- start with a hypothesis, go through the experiment, and write up their conclusion. I know my kids scored in the advanced range on the state 5th-grade science test, and they didn't get any extra supplementation in science.

I just hope they never completely replace the hands-on curriculum with a textbook-based one, as I think that would be tragic.