In Emily Wise’s green technology class at Bremerton High School Tuesday morning, students listened to a guest speaker from the Kitsap Conservation District discuss how rain gardens filter stormwater pollution and looked at a rain garden in the courtyard just outside their classroom.
Next door, in Briana Faxon’s Advanced Placement environmental science class, students dickered in a cap-and-trade simulation, trying to make the most money for themselves while reducing pollution.
Wise and Faxon try to keep away from books and give their students real-life experiences that will help them problem-solve and learn practical applications for science.
“Seeing that connection between the real world and science education is just a really important part of what they do,” Wise said. “Kids think science is so distant for them and they’re never going to use it.”
That real-world experience will be taken to the next level in March when Faxon’s environmental science class will spend a few days at Olympic Park Institute near Port Angeles, where students will research questions of their own design in a natural setting.
“They do get more excited about the concept when we’re actually doing something that’s hands-on,” Faxon said.
Getting students to understand scientific concepts becomes more urgent as state exams approach in March and April. To add more pressure, students taking the 10th grade state science exam in 2013 will be required to pass that test to graduate.
In science classes, students in Bremerton and Central Kitsap school districts have a lot of catching up to do.
In 2010, 53.8 percent of Central Kitsap 10th graders passed the science High School Proficiency Exam, while in Bremerton, 33.3 percent passed. The statewide average is 44.8 percent.
Until 2013, school districts will try to close that gap to help students meet state standards. But teachers, principals and district administrators say that task comes with obstacles, such as the high cost of teaching science amid budget cuts and the constantly changing state science requirements.
THE COST OF THE ‘REAL WORLD’
The program at Olympic Park Institute is paid for by a program intended to give disadvantaged students exposure to college-level experiences.
Tom Sanford, director of Olympic Park Institute, said when students build science research skills in natural habitats it helps them grasp scientific concepts better, especially for those not gifted in science.
“The intent is to really build the lifelong learning skills, build the inquisitive nature,” Sanford said. “It really grabs students’ attention in a way that’s much more tangible than what happens in a classroom.”
Bremerton High School senior April Lindstrom, 17, agrees.
“We get a real experience with the changes that are happening,” she said, adding that she doesn’t think she’s especially talented in science. “I have to put effort into it, but the fact that it’s interesting and we’re living through it adds to wanting to learn it.”
Because of that, Olympic Park Institute, which hosts about 6,000 students per year from 110 Washington schools, works to give underprivileged schools such as Bremerton a hand in order to attend.
The state government has also been supportive of outdoor education, passing the No Child Left Inside Act in 2007, which distributed grants to outdoor education projects across the state. However, the project was not allotted any money for the 2009-2011 budget cycle and applications for the grants are not being accepted.
Ryan Stevens, principal of Klahowya Secondary School, said the school is lucky because it has a large campus where students can do some outdoor research and experiments, but field trips have been “all but eliminated” during the six years he’s headed the school.
“It’s really expensive,” he said, noting that bus and ferry costs prohibit field trips just across Puget Sound to the University of Washington, where he wishes students could tour science labs.
Because of district budget cuts, the Central Kitsap School District has collaborated with county agencies to help bring hands-on activities to students. The Kitsap County Public Utilities District and Kitsap County Public Works Solid Waste and Waste Water divisions have contributed to a fourth grade science kit system that allows students to build a model of a watershed and track where recycled bottles go.
“None of us have a lot of money, but we pool it together,” said Doug Dowell, science specialist for the Central Kitsap School District.
GETTING A HEAD START IN SCIENCE
Educators also say that science is a relatively new focus for state requirements and it’s becoming increasingly important to expose children to science at a younger age.
“Science education probably hasn’t been as high a priority as reading and mathematics,” Bremerton High School principal John Polm said, adding that science is the most recent state-required test.
High school struggles in science start with a lack of exposure in elementary school, Bremerton School District officials said.
“The struggles that we have in science education probably begin long before we get to high school,” said Linda Jenkins, director of curriculum, instruction and assessment at the Bremerton School District. “We have not been teaching science with as much intensity as we need to in elementary school. Of course if you don’t spend a lot of time teaching, you’re not going to get a high level of performance.”
Bremerton is trying to change that. Starting next year, West Hills Elementary will begin phasing in a STEM program, instruction focused on science, technology, engineering and math. The program will be put into place over three years, transforming West Hills in to a kindergarden through eighth grade magnet school.
The changes won’t mean that students will only be taught science, but science and math will be incorporated into other areas, such as reading.
Currently, most Bremerton elementary schools visit the IslandWood outdoor education center in Bainbridge Island. The Puget Sound Naval Shipyard sends engineers to West Hills Elementary School and Naval Avenue Early Learning Center for an hour a week, teaching students lessons from science kits and showing them equipment from work of home.
In Central Kitsap, in addition to the fourth grade science kits, the district also brings its sixth graders to the Poulsbo Marine Science Center for an all-day lab activity, paid for by the science center.
Those efforts early on will hopefully make more students successful in science, Polm said.
“When I was in school, they really taught more to the high-end college-bound kid only. We want to teach to all students,” he said. “Hands-on, project-based activities give more kids a chance to succeed.”
That way, there will hopefully be less catch-up to be done when students hit high school, Polm said.
“When they come in behind, it is really challenging to get them up to grade level in the time we have,” he said.
DEPENDENT VARIABLES
Teachers and officials expressed frustration with changing state science standards, interrupting any sense of continuity and predictability in science education.
“I think this is the third time in 10 years I’ve been here that we’ve changed the science standard,” Jenkins said of the state standards. “That is a struggle.”
Before 2009, state science standards were “mile-wide and an inch deep,” Dowell said.
They required teachers to cover a wide range of subjects and the same standards were applied to students of different developmental stages – for example, kindergartners and second graders fell under the same “band” of expectations.
“The old standards were fraught with a lot of issues,” Dowell said.
Though several tweaks have been made to the old standards, Dowell said, the big shift came in June 2009, when science expectations switched from a more content-based focus to a multi-faceted approach that requires students to know about science processes and real-world applications, as well as concepts in life science and physical science.
Jenkins said science curriculum and testing requirements can change at any time at the whim of the Legislature and educators must constantly play catch-up. In addition to having to change what’s taught in each course, the school districts must also buy new materials to accompany new standards.
Another set of changes could be in store when the national Common Core State Standards Initiative releases its expectations for science. Having already developed guidelines for language arts and math, work on national science expectations began last year and school officials have no idea when they will be made official.
“It’s really a political creature at this point,” Dowell said. “It’s hard to do the advanced planning, it’s hard to align your courses and do what’s best for the kids when it’s kind of a moving target.”
However, Dowell believes the 2009 science changes moved the state’s science expectations closer to what the national standards will be.
“Our new standards are going to be much closer, a quantum leap closer, to the national core standards than the old standards,” he said.
Curriculum changes aside, students say it’s hard enough to master science, because of its inclusion of math and reading, as well as its dynamic nature.
People who struggle with math may also have a hard time with science, said Riley Mills, a 15-year-old sophomore at Klahowya.
“If people studied it hard enough, we’d be able to understand it,” Mills said. “It is a difficult subject to grasp.”
Stevens said Klahowya has it easier in a way because it can track students’ success from seventh through 12th grade, whereas other secondary schools in the area get less time with the students. That stability can make it easier whenever state or national standard changes might come, he said.
“What we try to determine is what a seventh grader needs to know in order to be successful in 12th grade,” he said.
Test scores released to the schools are not even helpful to teachers because they do not report what subjects were more challenging to students than others, Stevens said. Therefore, the school creates its own assessments and assists struggling students where it sees fit.
“Our teachers know what to do,” he said. “The main obstacle is time.”
