For the first time in a dozen years, the Arizona Department of Education is looking to update the state's school science standards.
The public has until Dec. 3 to provide feedback online. (The existing K-12 standards are available below or at azed.gov.)
Although the public is asked for input on the standards, teachers will comprise the working groups to create any revisions to its standards, department spokesman Charles Tack said.
“This is just our first step, asking for input,” said Tack.
Among content being taught in fourth-grade science is how natural and human activities have “positive and negative impacts on environments (such as fire, floods, pollution, dams).” The standards also ask students to evaluate the consequences of environmental changes that happen either rapidly or over a long period of time through drought, melting ice caps, the greenhouse effect and erosion.
RELATED: Try An AIMS Science Practice Test
In high school, students are taught to analyze “how patterns in the fossil record, nuclear chemistry, geology, molecular biology, and geographical distribution give support to the theory of organic evolution through natural selection over billions of years and the resulting present day biodiversity.”
The department also is asking for public input on its social studies standards, which were last updated in 2005.
