Curriculum Bridges Biology, Chemistry Basics To Prepare Students For High School

Approximately one-third of states, as well as numerous individual districts, have now implemented the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). These standards place emphasis on scientific inquiry and connect broad concepts across the various fields of science. However, many teachers are expressing their lack of instructional resources to assist them in effectively incorporating these new benchmarks into their classrooms.

To address this issue, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), an international nonprofit organization, announced the release of a new research-based curriculum for middle school teachers at their annual meeting. This curriculum, aligned with the NGSS, has shown significant impact on science learning during its early piloting.

The curriculum, developed by the AAAS Project 2061 initiative, aims to teach fundamental concepts about atoms and chemical reactions that are crucial for understanding high school biology. Jo Ellen Roseman, the director of Project 2061, explained that many students enter biology classes with misconceptions about chemistry. For example, some students do not recognize that gases have mass, or they believe that atoms are transmuted instead of rearranged during chemical reactions. The "Toward High School Biology" unit, which received funding from the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences and underwent five years of development, focuses on the molecular basis of biology. It introduces students to various scientific phenomena in a hands-on, inquiry-based manner.

During an afternoon teacher workshop at the AAAS meeting, representatives from Project 2061 and a few teachers who have piloted the program guided small groups of educators through demonstrations. In one experiment from the first chapter, the teachers observed the reaction between iron and air. A piece of steel wool soaked in vinegar was placed in a flask and covered with a latex glove. The teachers demonstrated that over time, the latex would be sucked into the flask and rust would begin to form on the steel wool.

The educators emphasized that at the beginning of the unit, they do not immediately discuss reactions; instead, they focus on investigations, changes, and observations. Herrmann-Abell, a senior research associate for Project 2061, explained that there is something happening to the matter in the flask that is altering the system.

To model the rearrangement of atoms during the chemical reaction, the teachers switched to using Legos. They used a brown Lego to represent iron and two red Legos together to represent oxygen. These Legos were then reconfigured to form rust, illustrating to students that the atoms do not actually change or disappear in a closed system; they simply rearrange. Herrmann-Abell stated that once students have experienced and modeled this on a substance and molecular level, they can begin to introduce vocabulary about chemical reactions.

The curriculum also includes a significant amount of writing, as the teachers who piloted the program informed the attendees at the AAAS meeting. For each demonstration, students are required to document their observations and attempt to explain them using evidence. Despite initial concerns about student resistance to writing, Leah Donovan, a middle school science teacher who tested the curriculum in her Maryland classroom, stated that her students have consistently risen to the challenge.

A randomized control trial conducted with six schools in Maryland demonstrated large effect sizes after students completed the Toward High School Biology unit. Although results from numerous other schools across the country were not presented at the conference, these initial findings indicate significant growth in students’ understanding of the science concepts covered in the curriculum.

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