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The Cornerstone-to-Capstone Approach
Creating Coherence in High School Science

Physicist and Nobel Laureate Leon Lederman, on the state of U.S. education in science:

"There is a powerful consensus which views the present state of U.S. education in science as nothing less than catastrophic for the future of the nation. We know this since the Sputnik (1957) era of competition with the Soviets, the 1983 'Nation at Risk,' the series of presidential declarations: '...By the year 2000, we shall...,' the Glenn Commission Report (2001), 'Before It's Too Late.'

Today we recognize pleas by Bill Gates (Microsoft), Lou Gerstner (IBM), Craig Barrett (Intel), and multitudes of industrial leaders and knowledgeable politicial thinkers who recognize the decline in U.S. production of science and engineering candidates. To this crisis of confidence, we add the rising power and technological advances of other nations, including the newly industrialized China and India. Evidence of U.S. decline in innovation abounds, for example, the seeming inability of NASA to manage its highest priority project. There is, too, the diminishing productivity of U.S. science and the ever more ominous continued decline in the interest of U.S. students in science and mathematics studies.

Cornerstone to Capstone

There is little question that education is key to many of the problems we face.

As an example of one particular reform that would have a high priority, we look at a three-year science sequence that may be required of all high school students...Today, the vast majority of high schools start the study of disciplinary science with biology, usually in ninth grade. The requirement of three years of science is increasing nationally and, today, about 30-40% of students will take at least three years of science in the order B-C-P (Biology-Chemistry-Physics). This sequence was devised in 1893. In the opinion of the writer, it is obsolete, pedagogically disastrous, and ignores the tremendous scientific advances of the 20th century. Here we make a fervent plea to revise the hundred-year-old sequence to P-C-B."

Into this discussion comes the book, The Cornerstone-to-Capstone Approach, which takes a look at issues related to science curriculum reform, the history of U.S. science education, and current approaches for enhancing student achievement.

Click here to download "An Invitation to Conversations" by physicist and Nobel Laureate Leon Lederman (pictured top left).

The book is available in pdf form, either as individual chapters or as the entire book.

The Cornerstone-to-Capstone Approach is now available in the BSCS e-Store! To order your copy ($25.00) click here.

This material is based on work supported by the National Science Foundation NSF