Pennsylvania students struggle with science. A recent report from the Department of Education confirmed the bad news. Like much of the rest of the state, Blair County's schools showed sub-par science performance. All seven school districts scored below the 70 point level that was considered proficient. Six of them scored in the fifties.
I became frustrated a decade ago when Earth Science, in particular, was deemphasized in many central Pennsylvania schools. Hoping to raise awareness of the importance of Earth Science, I set out to show that our high school students were falling short on their understanding of the planet and their environment. Ultimately, I hoped that schools might bring Earth Science back to their ninth grade class curricula. Though time constraints did not allow me to survey a large number, I did manage to test about one hundred high school students. My one hundred question test asked the sorts of questions that I typically asked in the Earth Science classes I taught during my teaching career two decades ago. Some of the questions were admittedly challenging but many were the sorts of things that any citizen should understand. The results should cause us to take pause.
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