Some more positive work coming out of the National Center for Science Education or the NCSE with its Deputy Director, Glenn Branch, pointing out the situation in New Jersey.
With some of the issues in a poverty of critical thinking, at times, within the United States, some good events are more than welcome. The state board of education of New Jersey adopted the revisions of some education standards for the entire state.
These will be incorporating climate change in “a systematic and coordinated way.” Branch explained how every teacher within the public school system of New Jersey would be “encouraged” to discuss climate change in a proper context, educational environment.
Branch said, “…New Jersey’s climate is already changing… and it is to the state’s credit that its education standards are changing in response. But it will be necessary for the state to ensure that these latter changes have their intended effect by funding education appropriately: meeting the greenhouse effect with the greenback dollar.”
These kinds of educational advances can help work on the unfortunate scientific illiteracy in the United States as a leading scientific nation, as with other nations harbour large swathes of scientific illiteracy.
Whether consequential knowledge such as evolution via natural selection for biological sciences and medical sciences, or climate change for actionables on an urgent problem, or not, scientific illiteracy is an ongoing issue and state-by-state changes to educational curricula as a service to the next generations is greatly appreciated.
With files from the National Center for Science Education.
Photo by Saketh Garuda on Unsplash