National Science Education Reform and its Effect on Science Education Reform in North Carolina

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to give a historical background of the progress of elementary science education reform from a national perspective and to then show the impact of that reform on North Carolina's efforts towards elementary science education reform. A comparison is made between the National Research Council's 1996 publication of the National Science Education Standards and North Carolina's 1994 publication of the new Standard Course of Study: Science K-12. The comparison shows that North Carolina has made an effort to incorporate the national vision of science education reform into its own vision of science education reform.