Science courses nearly extinct in elementary grades, study finds
October 25, 2007
SFGate.com (San Francisco Chronicle) -
“The third-graders looked puzzled when asked what they liked best about science. No answer. OK, then, next question: ”What is science?” a visitor asked the children in a hallway at Bessie Carmichael Elementary School in San Francisco. ”Science is like art,” said Manual, 7, who let that cryptic response hang in the air as he ducked away. He might have meant that both can open the heart to beauty. Or maybe he was saying that science, like art, is something students don’t much of these days in elementary school. If it were the latter, a new survey of 923 Bay Area elementary school teachers would agree. About 80 percent of those teachers said they spent less than an hour each week teaching science, according to researchers from the Lawrence Hall of Science at UC Berkeley and from WestEd, an education think tank based in San Francisco” (more)
