KnowAtom's Blog

When looking for a STEM curriculumfor your school, you’re going to have a lot of options. Unfortunately, not all of those options afford you the tools, techniques, and STEM teacher training resources that you’ll need for a successful next generation STEM program. Many of them are simply old curricula without any significant NGSS changes that are basically disguised as a new curriculum. As a teacher, you expect more from a new STEM curriculum than just a facelift on a 20-year-old kit or textbook.

Steve Jobs, the late founder and CEO of Apple, is known around the world as one of the great thought leaders of our time. He didn’t create Apple in a vacuum, though. A lot happened between the time that Jobs was building computers in a garage with Steve Wozniak and when he became known for his black turtlenecks and amazing innovations in smartphone and tablet technology. 

While Jobs may have been considered a genius in the tech industry, his success is attributable to more than just his intelligence. It also came from a desire and drive to answer questions and solve problems.

When you’re searching for new STEM curriculum, it can be hard to know what to look for. Many traditional curricula focus on student awareness, knowledge, and performance, but not mastery. Awareness-ready resources, like those offered by science museums and other public venues, are good at exposing students to what STEM is, while knowledge-ready resources, like textbooks, introduce students to scientific facts and figures. Performance-ready resources, like your typical science kits, enable students to recognize and apply specific skills to specific well-defined tasks by following a task booklet or drawing. None of these approaches, however, develop true mastery.

The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) are transforming science education. As of this post's writing, 13 states and the District of Columbia have adopted NGSS, while others are using them as a model for updating their own science standards. Here are 9 things you need to know about NGSS.

1. NGSS Brings Science Education into the Future

Did you know that many of the current science education standards were developed almost 20 years ago? Our children have been learning science based on a framework that was developed before the invention of DVDs, the first NASA Rover landing, and the completion of the Human Genome Project.

There has been a lot of talk lately about the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and how we should be teaching our students STEM. Most of the current state standards for teaching STEM were created and implemented in the 1990s, before the release of the iPod and before Pluto lost its standing as a planet. A lot has happened in the last 20 years, and progressive, forward-thinking educators have been pushing for updates in STEM standards.

Science and technology are constantly evolving fields, meaning every STEM curriculum needs to be updated and improved on occasion. Your students have been born into the Internet Age. Many of them don’t remember a time before smartphones and tablets. While this can be enough to make some of us feel a little bit old, it’s also very exciting. These students who have never lived in a world of dial-up Internet are our future, and they deserve an updated, modern, and effective STEM curriculum that shows them the relevance of science and technology.