ABSTRACT
One day out of frustration, a prospective teacher came to me and said, “How much biology do I really have to know to teach this to first graders? Don’t you have a lesson plan that I can put into my folder?” Though blunt in its delivery, this prospective teacher had expressed a pervasive sentiment that had simmered all semester among the class. Whenever we deviated into the complex relationships in biology, or introduced open-ended questions in science, the prospective teachers often became irritable and exasperated. They desperately wanted the “script,” the lesson plans that cover the diverse range of science standards, the veritable bag of tricks that they could use for teaching in their class. Most of these prospective teachers were anxious about their mastery of science; they wanted just enough biology or chemistry to anticipate their own students’ questions.
