What is informal science education?
Informal science education supports people of all ages and walks of life in exploring science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
The framework identifies the key scientific ideas and practices all students should learn by the end of high school and will serve as the foundation for new K-12 science education standards replacing those issued more than a decade ago. The National Research Council is the operating arm of the National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Engineering; all three are independent, nongovernmental organizations.
The committee that wrote the report sees the need for significant improvements in how science is taught in the U.S. The new framework is designed to help students gradually deepen their knowledge of core ideas in four disciplinary areas over multiple years of school, rather than acquire shallow knowledge of many topics. And it strongly emphasizes the practices of science – helping students learn to plan and carry out investigations, for example, and to engage in argumentation from evidence.
2. Why does this report decline to include the full range of sciences, as defined by the National Science Foundation, including psychology and sociology? Are these second-rate sciences, especially if--as the NRC suggests--schools emphasize the *practices* of science? Does not the cherry-picking of the definition of "science" based on topic rather than processes of probing the unknown (that is, to continue the hoary practice of defining science as biology, chemistry, geosciences, physics and astronomy) hobble learners of all ages? And does cherry-picking the definition of "science" also propagate stereotype threats that girls and women can't (or won't) do science?