The Denver Museum of Nature and Science is extending free admission for self-guided tours to all school groups for the 2012–2013 school year. Additionally, the museum is still offerering funding to cover bus fuel costs and scholarships to reduce fees for onsite labs and classes. To learn more, visit www.dmns.org/teachers.
In science, we stress the use of activities and skills that focus on the active search for knowledge or understanding to satisfy a curiosity. Structure and facilitated discussions based on shared understanding of rules of scientific discourses must be the rule to enhance our science disciplinary literacy (e.g., justifying understandings, basing arguments on data, critically assessing the explanation of peers). Both aspects of understanding—explaining and representing—are required to meet standards and prepare our students for the technological world they will enter. Science should include activities focused on the following main ideas.
In DPS, science is a required subject for all middle school students. The content for sixth grade is earth science. Seventh grade students learn about biology. Eighth graders take physical science, including physics and chemistry.
The redesigned middle school science program was field tested in ten middle schools and all K–8 schools during the 2005–2006 school year and was implemented in all middle schools beginning in 2006–2007. The new curriculum:
All DPS middle school science programs were developed and nationally field tested with support from the National Science Foundation.