Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

The Intended Curriculum: Locating Nature in the Science Standards

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
The Natural World and Science Education in the United States

  • 262 Accesses

Abstract

This chapter presents a critical discourse analysis of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and two sets of Georgia science standards—the Georgia Performance Standards (GPS) that were used till the end of the academic year 2016–17 and the Georgia Standards for Excellence (GSE) that were made operational for Georgia public schools from the academic year 2017–18. We analyze the implicit and explicit existential, propositional, value assumptions and logical implications in these documents. Next, through an iterative process of repeated reading and textual analysis, we identify the contours of the scientific and environmental discourses that animate science standards in the United States. We show how the intended curriculum, as reflected in these standards, represents the natural world as a biophysical system that can be “terraformed” and sustainably managed by science and technology to support “green” capitalist societies on this planet.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
eBook
USD 19.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 29.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 99.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    Because the standards documents are composed of short independent statements, we did not analyze bridging assumptions that give coherence to a text by logically linking different parts of a text.

  2. 2.

    Georgia Performance Standards had in turn replaced the earlier existing Quality Core Curriculum .

  3. 3.

    Standards writing process is a collaborative process involving many writers who may not always be on the same page regarding their understanding of science and curricular priorities. This can sometimes lead to inconsistencies within the standards. We found such a contradiction in a middle school NGSS standard MS-ESS3-1 which assumes that the humans have little, if any, role to play in uneven distribution of Earth’s mineral, energy, and groundwater resources. This is clearly a problematic assumption as it distances school science from the current scientific view on the topic. However, the clarifying statement accompanying this standard goes against this assumption and states that in this standard the “Emphasis is on how these resources are limited and typically non-renewable, and how their distributions are significantly changing as a result of removal by humans.” It is difficult to see how the same group of writers could have written both the standard and its accompanying clarification statement.

  4. 4.

    Here we understand economic rationality as an instrumental decision-making process that aims at finding the most efficient ways to reach ends that yield maximum returns with the least opportunity costs as measured in monetary terms.

  5. 5.

    For instance, a popular textbook on ecology, Fundamentals of Ecology , by Odum and Barrett (2005), defines biome as a “large regional or subcontinental system characterized by a particular major vegetation type (such as a temperate deciduous forest); biomes are distinguished by the predominant plants associated with a particular climate (especially temperature and precipitation)” (p. 513).

  6. 6.

    According to Rockstrom et al. (2009), the three planetary boundaries that we have already crossed are climate change, rate of biodiversity loss, and changes to the global nitrogen cycle.

References

  • Anderson, M. (2017). For Earth Day, here’s how Americans view environmental issues. Pew Research Center. Retrieved from http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/04/20/for-earth-day-heres-how-americans-view-environmental-issues/

  • Bäckstrand, K., & Lövbrand, E. (2006). Planting trees to mitigate climate change: Contested discourses of ecological modernization, green governmentality and civic environmentalism. Global Environmental Politics, 6(1), 50–75.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Berkowitz, A. R., Nilon, C. H., & Hollweg, K. S. (2003). Understanding urban ecosystems: A new frontier for science and education. New York, NY: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Berliner, D., & Biddle, B. (1995). The manufactured crisis: Myths, fraud and the attack on America’s public schools. New York, NY: Perseus.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cadenasso, M. L., Pickett, S. T., Weathers, K. C., & Jones, C. G. (2003). A framework for a theory of ecological boundaries. AIBS Bulletin, 53(8), 750–758.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chapin, F. S., Chapin, M. C., Matson, P. A., & Vitousek, P. (2011). Principles of terrestrial ecosystem ecology. New York, NY: Springer.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Commission on Mathematics and Science Education. (2009). Opportunity equation: Transforming mathematics and science education for citizenship and the global economy. New York, NY: Carnegie Corporation of New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Committee on Development of an Addendum to the National Science Education Standards on Scientific Inquiry. (2000). Inquiry and the national science education standards: A guide for teaching and learning. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Depaepe, M., & Smeyers, P. (2008). Educationalization as an ongoing modernization process. Educational Theory, 58(4), 379–389.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dryzek, J. S. (2013). The politics of the Earth: Environmental discourses. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ellis, E. C. (2015). Ecology in an anthropogenic biosphere. Ecological Monographs, 85(3), 287–331. https://doi.org/10.1890/14-2274.1

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ellis, E. C., & Ramankutty, N. (2008). Putting people in the map: Anthropogenic biomes of the world. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 6(8), 439–447. https://doi.org/10.1890/070062

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Eriksen, T. H. (2014). Globalization: The key concepts. London, UK: A&C Black.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fairclough, N. (1995). Critical discourse analysis: Papers in the critical study of language. Harlow, UK: Longman.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fairclough, N. (2003). Analysing discourse: Text analysis for social research. London, UK: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fairclough, N. (2004). Critical discourse analysis in researching language in the new capitalism: Overdetermination, transdisciplinarity and textual analysis. In L. Young & C. Harrison (Eds.), Systemic functional linguistics and critical discourse analysis (pp. 103–122). London, UK: Continuum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fairclough, N., & Wodak, R. (2004). Critical discourse analysis. In T. A. van Dijk (Ed.), Discourse as social interaction (pp. 258–284). Thousands Oak, CA: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fath, B. D. (2014). Ecosystem ecology. In S. E. Jorgensen & B. D. Fath (Eds.), Encyclopedia of ecology (pp. 1125–1131). Oxford, UK: Elsevier Science.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fendler, L. (2008). New and improved educationalising: Faster, more powerful and longer lasting. Ethics and Education, 3(1), 15–26.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Flinders, D. J., Noddings, N., & Thornton, S. J. (1986). The null curriculum: Its theoretical basis and practical implications. Curriculum Inquiry, 16(1), 33–42.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gallagher, R., & Carpenter, B. (1997). Human-dominated ecosystems. Science, 277(5325), 485–485.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gardiner, S. M. (2016). Geoengineering: Ethical questions for deliberate climate manipulators. In S. M. Gardiner & A. Thompson (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of environmental ethics. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Georgia Department of Education. (n.d.). Georgia performance standards for science. Atlanta, GA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Georgia Department of Education. (n.d.). Georgia Standards of Excellence for Science. Atlanta, GA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Georgia Department of Education. (n.d.). Georgia performance standards. Retrieved from https://www.georgiastandards.org/Standards/Pages/BrowseStandards/BrowseGPS.aspx

  • Georgia Department of Education: Science. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.gadoe.org/Curriculum-Instruction-and-Assessment/Curriculum-and-Instruction/Pages/Science.aspx.

  • Georgia Science Teachers Association. (n.d.). Science standards for Georgia’s next generation. Retrieved from http://www.georgiascienceteacher.org/Next-Gen-Updates

  • Goertz, M. E. (2009). Standards-based reform: Lessons from the past, directions for the future. In K. K. Wong & R. Rothman (Eds.), Clio at the table: Using history to inform and improve education policy (pp. 201–219). New York, NY: Peter Lang.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goertz, M. E. (2010). National standards: Lessons from the past, directions for the future. In B. J. Reys & R. E. Reys (Eds.), Mathematics curriculum: Issues, trends, and future directions: 2010 yearbook (pp. 51–63). Reston, VA: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.

    Google Scholar 

  • How to read the next generation science standards. (2013). Retrieved from https://www.nextgenscience.org/sites/default/files/How%20to%20Read%20NGSS%20-%20Final%2008.19.13.pdf

  • Hufnagel, E., Kelly, G. J., & Henderson, J. A. (2017). How the environment is positioned in the Next Generation Science Standards: A critical discourse analysis. Environmental Education Research, 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504622.2017.1334876

  • Johnson, E., & Williams, F. (2010). Desegregation and multiculturalism in the Portland public schools. Oregon Historical Quarterly, 111(1), 6–37.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kraft, M. (2015). Environmental policy and politics. New York, NY: Taylor & Francis.

    Google Scholar 

  • Luke, T. (1999). Eco-Managerialism. Environmental Studies as a Power/Knowledge Formation. In F. Fischer & M. A. Hajer (Eds.), Living with nature. Environmental politics as cultural discourse (pp. 103–120). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Macrine, S. L., McLaren, P., & Hill, D. (2010). Revolutionizing pedagogy: Education for social justice within and beyond global neo-liberalism. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Martin, J. R., & Rose, D. (2008). Genre relations: Mapping culture. London, UK: Equinox Pub.

    Google Scholar 

  • Marzluff, J., Shulenberger, E., Endlicher, W., Alberti, M., Bradley, G., Ryan, C., … Simon, U. (2008). Urban ecology: An international perspective on the interaction between humans and nature. New York, NY: Springer US.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Mazid, B. M. (2014). CDA and PDA made simple: Language, ideology and power in politics and media. Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publisher.

    Google Scholar 

  • National Research Council. (2001). Investigating the influence of standards: A framework for research in mathematics, science, and technology education. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • National Research Council. (2012). A framework for K-12 science education: Practices, crosscutting concepts, and core ideas. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • National Research Council. (2013). Next generation science standards: For states by states. Retrieved from https://www.nextgenscience.org/

  • Nelson, F. (Ed.). (2012). Community rights, conservation and contested land: The politics of natural resource governance in Africa. New York, NY: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Odum, E. P., & Barrett, G. W. (2005). Fundamentals of ecology. Belmont, CA: Thomson Brooks/Cole.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pinar, W. F. (2012). What is curriculum theory? London, UK: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pruitt, S. L. (2014). The next generation science standards: The features and challenges. Journal of Science Teacher Education, 25(2), 145–156.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ravitch, D. (2010). The death and life of the great American school system: How testing and choice are undermining education. New York, NY: Basic Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rockström, J., Steffen, W., Noone, K., Persson, Å., Chapin, F. S., III, Lambin, E., … Schellnhuber, H. J. (2009). Planetary boundaries: Exploring the safe operating space for humanity. Ecology and Society, 14(2).

    Google Scholar 

  • Rosa, E. A., Rudel, T. K., York, R., Jorgenson, A. K., & Dietz, T. (2015). The human (anthropogenic) driving forces of global climate change. In R. E. Dunlap & R. J. Brulle (Eds.), Climate change and society (pp. 32–60). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Rosa, E. A., York, R., & Dietz, T. (2004). Tracking the anthropogenic drivers of ecological impacts. Ambio: A Journal of the Human Environment, 33(8), 509–512.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sharma, A. (2016). STEM-ification of education: The zombie reform strikes again. Journal for Activist Science and Technology Education, 7(1), 42–51.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shepard, L. A. (2015). If we know so much from research on learning, why are educational reforms not successful? In M. J. Feuer, A. I. Berman, & R. C. Atkinson (Eds.), Past as prologue (p. 41). Washington, DC: National Academy of Education.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shepherd, J., Iglesias-Rodriguez, D., & Yool, A. (2007). Geo-engineering might cause, not cure, problems. Nature, 449(7164), 781–781.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Soneryd, L., & Uggla, Y. (2015). Green governmentality and responsibilization: New forms of governance and responses to ‘consumer responsibility’. Environmental Politics, 24(6), 913–931. https://doi.org/10.1080/09644016.2015.1055885

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sowman, M., & Wynberg, R. (2014). Governance for justice and environmental sustainability: Lessons across natural resource sectors in Sub-Saharan Africa. New York, NY: Taylor & Francis.

    Google Scholar 

  • The need for standards. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.nextgenscience.org/need-standards

  • The next generation science standards: Executive summary. (2013). Retrieved from https://www.nextgenscience.org/sites/default/files/Final%20Release%20NGSS%20Front%20Matter%20-%206.17.13%20Update_0.pdf

  • Tran, D., Reys, B. J., Teuscher, D., Dingman, S., & Kasmer, L. (2016). Analysis of curriculum standards: An important research area. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 47(2), 118–133.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Travis, J. (1993). Schools stumble on an Afrocentric science essay. Science, 262(5136), 1121–1123.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Veel, R. (2005). The greening of school science. In A. P. L. J. R. Martin, J. R. Martin, & R. Veel (Eds.), Reading science: Critical and functional perspectives on discourses of science (pp. 115–151). New York, NY: Taylor & Francis.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wixson, K. K., Dutro, E., & Athan, R. G. (2003). Chapter 3: The challenge of developing content standards. Review of Research in Education, 27(1), 69–107.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wodak, R. (2007). Pragmatics and critical discourse analysis: A cross-disciplinary inquiry. Pragmatics & Cognition, 15(1), 203–225.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Writing Team. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://nextgenscience.org/writing-team

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Educational Theory and Practice, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA

    Ajay Sharma

  2. University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA

    Cory Buxton

Authors
  1. Ajay Sharma
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Cory Buxton
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2018 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Sharma, A., Buxton, C. (2018). The Intended Curriculum: Locating Nature in the Science Standards. In: The Natural World and Science Education in the United States. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76186-2_3

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76186-2_3

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-76185-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-76186-2

  • eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation