Troy School District Advances in Science Teaching

Submitted by Troy School District 30-C

Photo: William B. Orenic students Sam Bickerton and Sara Spreitzer bring the school’s new science standards to life.

Science education is changing rapidly, and not just because there are new things to learn. There are new ways to learn in the 21st century. Fifteen years ago, for instance, there was a push to commit more facts to memory. Students spent more time memorizing bones, historical dates and conversion tables.

With today’s technology, facts are an instant away, and the emphasis instead is on teaching students how to apply their knowledge to solve problems and to create solutions and new ideas.

Troy Community Consolidated School District 30-C teachers are on top of these changes, implementing the new nationwide standards, NGSS, or Next Generation Science Standards, in all of their science classrooms, kindergarten through eighth grade.

“It’s a different way of looking at science instruction,” said Troy’s Curriculum Director Daniela Fountain. “The biggest and most exciting shift is aligning science with the engineering practices that go along with it. We want kids to think like scientists and to think like engineers, asking questions and defining problems.”

Troy’s students this year will expand their basic science education by exploring science in a more integrative way. They will propose and design solutions and interface their work with technology and English composition and even with other such disciplines as math and history.

“We’re taking it to another level,” Fountain said.

National and state science standards have not been updated in 15 years, according to Fountain, and there have been major advances in science and in our understanding of how students learn science in the meantime. Illinois schools will be required to implement NGSS next year. Troy schools implemented it this year. Troy’s fifth grade science teachers actually employed it in their classrooms last year. Fifth grade William B. Orenic Intermediate School teacher Shelley Hill has just received a set of digital thermometers she’s planning on using to better incorporate NGSS in her classes this year.

“We are doing more engineering practices like designing and building models,” she said, “like engineers do in real life. It’s more hands-on with more thinking skills involved and more independence.”