Foundation Science:
A Comprehensive High School Curriculum
Funder: National Science Foundation
Principal Investigator: Jacqueline
S. Miller, Ph.D.
Project Director: June Foster, Joseph Flynn (Phases 1 and 2, Part 1)
Foundation Science is a comprehensive high school science curriculum being developed by EDC’s Center for Science Education with funding from the National Science Foundation. Foundation Science comprises four full-year introductory courses in chemistry, physics, biology, and earth science. Because the curriculum addresses national science standards (AAAS, MCREL, and NRC), students using these materials will be well prepared for advanced science courses.
Foundation Science stresses rigorous, inquiry-oriented learning in contexts that are relevant to students. By engaging students in a story or narrative that involves the concepts and skills to be learned, the instructional materials provide a context and framework around which students construct understanding. Students are challenged to use their understandings to analyze or solve a problem presented in the story.
This eight-year project is rigorous and comprehensive in its approaches to curriculum development. Current research findings in the “science of science learning”—cognitive science, developmental psychology, neuroscience, assessment, and educational psychology—underpin curriculum design. Led by principal investigator Dr. Jacqueline S. Miller (former PI of the Insights in Biology curriculum), the project team merges expertise in the science disciplines, science teaching, curriculum development, cognition, assessment, and professional development. Scientists and highly experienced science teachers advise the project and review materials. Intensive national field tests are conducted to evaluate student learning and engagement, to determine feasibility of use by teachers, and to inform curriculum revisions.
Collectively, these approaches result in a curriculum that motivates students and enables them to consolidate and expand their knowledge, develop deep understanding of concepts, and develop scientific process and critical-thinking skills.
Features of Foundation Science.
Course Information
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Contact Information
For additional information about this project,
please contact:
Jacqueline S. Miller
Education Development Center, Inc.
55 Chapel Street
Newton, MA 02458-1060
Email: jsmiller@edc.org
800-225-4276 ext. 2438
Fax 617-630-8439
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0101798. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF).
