ABSTRACT
There have been several recognizable periods of science curriculum reform in the United States since the middle of the 19th century. The first were the efforts by mid- to late 19th-century scientists to increase the intellectual rigor of science study by placing students in direct contact with natural phenomena and having them reason through the patterns and relationships they observed instead of learning by book study alone, often through rote memorization of what they read. These efforts culminated in the 1893 report of the Committee of Ten of the National Educational Association, chaired by chemist and Harvard President Charles Eliot. That was followed by a long period of Progressive-Era reforms, which lasted most of the first half of the 20th century. Then came the period of National Science Foundation (NSF) funded curriculum projects of the 1950s and 1960s, which lasted a much shorter time but whose effects are still being felt today. Then, in reaction to the highly discipline-focused and intellectually rigorous curriculum materials of the 1950s and 1960s, there was a wave of more socially responsive materials focused on environmental awareness, personal relevance, and the relationship between science and society. And then, beginning in the early 1980s, a report by the Commission on Excellence in Education, A Nation at Risk, stimulated an era of standards-based reform, which we are in the midst of today.
