A state committee made up of parents, teachers and community members has proposed a new set of science standards for Wyoming.
Those standards, released Friday by the Wyoming Department of Education, will be discussed next week by the State Board of Education, the body in charge of adopting new standards for the state’s K-12 schools.
Two years ago, lawmakers put this process on hold when they blocked the State Board from considering a set of benchmarks called the Next Generation Science Standards, because they acknowledged the scientific consensus that human activity causes climate change.
Last year, lawmakers put the controversial standards back on the table. And after 10 months of studying those science standards, as well as science standards from Wyoming and eleven other states, the review committee has presented benchmarks very similar to the Next Generation Science Standards.
“It seemed to be unanimous that they wanted to use the Next Generation framework as a starting point to build off of,” says WDE standards supervisor Laurie Hernandez. “They didn’t say that they were perfectly ready to adopt those. They saw a need for change—to make it more Wyoming-specific. They did make considerable changes throughout.”
Those changes including making the standards less explicit in acknowledging human-caused climate change.
For example, the Next Generation standards say middle schoolers should be able to “Ask questions to clarify evidence of the factors that have caused the rise in global temperatures over the past century.”
But Wyoming’s proposed standards refer instead to “the factors that have caused changes in temperatures over time.”
Hernandez says the subtle tweaks reflect public input asking for a “more fair and balanced” approach to teaching climate change.
“They took out any wording that said completely ‘a rise’ or a definite factual statement,” says Hernandez. “And instead, [they] said that students should be investigating and looking at the change—whether it is positive or negative or an increase or decrease—and making informed decisions based on their investigations and research.”
The science standards review committee included 41 parents, teachers, administrators and business and community members. The process included more public input than last time around, to head off further controversy.
“You know, the politics—a few years ago—I’m not sure should have been interjected into the system at all,” says State Board Chairman Pete Gosar. “Last year, the State Board developed a new, more inclusive public input process. Public input is essential to establishing education policies that work for Wyoming, and we’re happy to report that we used that process in the science standards review.”
The State Board of Education will consider the standards beginning March 17, and they’ll be opportunity for more public input before any new standards are adopted.
Wyoming’s current science standards were approved back in 2008.
Watch a Wyoming Department of Education video about the science standards review committee's work below:
