Using the GSS Modules As A Curriculum Framework To Meet State Standards

by Dalene Dutton
MMSA NASA Teacher Associate

With so little instructional time, and so much to cover in today's classrooms, a curriculum with a strong match to whatever standards students will be held accountable for is needed. For Maine, and many other states with populations too small to create a market for commercial publishers, there is a lack of curricular materials that focus on the state standards. Many materials use the National Science Education Standards, which share many areas with Maine's Learning Results, but there are areas where the two sets of standards differ.

No matter how great a set of standards is, they are not a curriculum. Curriculum should be coherent, and connected to the students' lives. Standards often have groups of performance indicators listed under a common heading, but they are not connected by a storyline, something for students to continually connect to as they attempt to make meaning out of what they are being exposed to. Without an explicit storyline to scaffold ideas, students are less likely to retain concepts. Lists of indicators assigned to individual grade levels or classrooms can lead to "activity mania" where the items are addressed by separate, sometimes totally unrelated activities. This leads to a disjointed experience for students, even when the individual activities are very well suited for the particular concept. A framework is needed to ensure coherence.

Global Systems Science modules can provide the framework for a coherent program that is focused on standards. GSS materials are based on National Standards, and can be supplemented to meet a state's individual standards. The quality of the text and supplemental activities is exceptional, they are provocative, and they deal with issues that are current. The modular design increases their flexibility, and the electronic format makes them extremely affordable.

In order to adapt the GSS modules to meet state standards you must first deeply understand what the state standards are. In order to start to create a program to teach Maine's Learning Results based on the GSS modules, I started by studying the standards in detail. I searched for areas where the state standards mesh well with the National Science Education Standards, Science For All Americans, Benchmarks For Science Literacy, and The Atlas of Science Literacy. I surveyed the research on misconceptions and instructional implications associated with the ideas covered in the state standards, and created documents that summarized all of the information for each performance indicator studied.

This may seem like an excessive amount of work, but like many sets of state standards, Maine's Learning Results are a series of one to two sentence statements that are often interpreted in various ways. I wanted my interpretation to be based on documents that have been scrutinized by well-respected experts in science, education, technology, and human development and to be informed by research into how students learn. I also wanted to be very clear about the ideas that the curriculum should explicitly address, in order to make sure that the result was extremely focused on the standards. I wanted to "nail" the state standards, rather than gloss over some of the ideas in the standards and really focus on others.

For example, in The Maine Learning Results, Standard D: Continuity and Change (at the 9-12 Level) Performance Indicator #2 reads:

Describe why the offspring of sexually reproducing species have different survival rates than those of asexually reproducing species under a variety of conditions. Describe the advantages and disadvantages of each.

After studying the recommendations of the national documents I expanded on the statement, creating the following:

There is enormous variety among living things in the world. In the context of heredity, the focus is on the origin of variation. Differences between individuals within the same species, and even within the same family, result from the recombination of parents' genes or mutations of genes in reproductive cells. Sex is a mechanism that introduces genetic variety within a population. The presence of a variety of genetic combinations increases the odds that the population will contain some individuals with the genetic potential to thrive under new conditions. Because in asexually reproducing populations the entire population has the same genome (except for differences due to mutation) there is less chance of the population having the needed genetic information to thrive under new conditions.

I then attempted to identify the specific ideas that are necessary for a student to fully understand in order to achieve an understanding of the concepts in this performance indicator:

• The sorting and recombination of genes in sexual reproduction results in a great variety of possible gene combinations from the offspring of any two parents.
• The variation of organisms within a species increases the likelihood that at least some members of the species will survive under changed environmental conditions.
• Offspring of asexual organisms (clones) inherit all of the parent's genes.
• New heritable characteristics can result from new combinations of existing genes or from mutations of genes in reproductive cells.
• Some new gene combinations make little difference, some can produce organisms with new and perhaps enhanced capabilities, and some can be deleterious.
• Some characteristics give individuals an advantage over others in surviving and reproducing.
• Asexually reproducing species do not require another individual to be present in order to be able to reproduce.
• Sexual reproduction requires two individuals, each of which contributes a portion of the genetic material that is passed on to the offspring.

The Maine Learning Results do have any specific supporting documentation to address instructional implications, but the information is available elsewhere. (NSES, Benchmarks, Driver et al.'s Making Sense of Secondary Science.) I summarized the instructional implications that I wanted to keep in mind:

• It is important that students understand the important distinction between the selection of an individual with a certain trait and the changing proportions of of that trait in populations. This requires some understanding of the mathematics of proportions and opportunities for the to reflect on the individual versus population distinction in other contexts.
• One misconception that teachers may encounter involves students attributing new variations to an organism's need, environmental conditions, or use. With some help, students can understand that, in general, mutations occur randomly and are selected because they help some organism survive and produce more offspring.
• Other misconceptions center on a lack of understanding of how a population changes as a result of differential reproduction (some individuals producing more offspring), as opposed to all individuals in a population changing.
• Pupils tend to see adaptation in a naturalistic or teleological sense: undertaken to satisfy the organism's need or desire to fulfill some future requirement. Students confuse an individual's adaptation during its lifetime with inherited changes in acquired characteristics. Many students believe that individuals can adapt to change in the environment if they need to, and that these adaptations are inherited.
• Unless students clearly understand the differences in sexual and asexual reproduction, they may be unable to understand sexual reproduction as being the source of variation in a population.
• Studies involving advanced high school and college students have shown that large proportions do not understand the interaction of genes and environment. Examining specific cases can help.
• Pupils have some idea of the randomness of inheritance--that sometimes offspring are like their mother, sometimes like their father, sometimes both. However, pupils rarely show evidence of applying the concept of chance and probability to inheritance and evolution. The concepts of randomness and probability are not held by many students even after advanced courses.

Armed with all of this detailed information, I could then analyze the Global Systems Science Modules for true alignment. This is much more than a topical match, but yields detailed information about the specific ideas and the extent to which they are covered by the materials. I created an analysis document that looks like this (click to enlarge):

(Note that this analysis is for a DIFFERENT performance indicator than the one that I "unpacked" above.)

Once this analysis was completed, gaps in coverage of the Maine Learning Results can be identified, and focus areas for supplements targeted. I created a graphic organizer that shows where there are gaps. For some of the content standards, the modules did an excellent job on their own, and will require no supplements:

No gaps in Standard B (Ecology):

(NOTE: Not all of the modules are shown on this graphic.)

But there were gaps in Standard D (Continuity and Change) and a few others: The next steps are to develop supplements that FOCUS on these areas, and that are inquiry-based, firmly connected to the storyline of the modules, and are relevant for Maine students (have Northeastern bioregion examples, rather than only Pacific Northwest examples).

Where am I in the process? The analysis work is nearly finished (whew!) and three supplements are currently in development. I have recruited content experts to help me see possible connections to GSS modules. I have found content experts willing to help with professional development for teachers who want to implement the supplements and am gathering resources for students and teachers to use. By late April I hope to have them completed and to identify teachers willing to pilot the supplements.

For further information contact:

Dalene Dutton
MMSA NASA Teacher Associate
49 South Main Street
Morrill, ME 04952
(207) 342-4194
dalene_dutton@fivetowns.net

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