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From the Executive Director: Partnerships
Vol. 11, No. 2, Fall/Winter 1999
Partnerships are in the NSRC’s blood. They helped us get started more than a
decade ago. Today, they sustain us as we expand our work in science education reform.
It was a partnership between two of the nation’s leading scientific institutions,
the Smithsonian Institution and the National Academy of Sciences, that brought the NSRC
into being in 1985. Our circle of partners grew rapidly, in part as a consequence of a
planning conference held shortly thereafter. Participants at that meeting included school
district administrators, scientists, science educators, and corporate leaders from across
the country. Together, they crafted an NSRC mission statement that still serves us well.
The NSRC’s sphere of activity, these leaders suggested, should include the
development of instructional materials, dissemination of information in support of science
education reform, and outreach to school districts across the nation.
As we began to develop an agenda for action in each of these areas, we quickly realized
that we couldn’t do it alone. Our work on the Science and
Technology for Children (STC) curriculum demanded input from a host of technical
advisers and evaluators. Field-testing these units led to the formation of partnerships
with dozens of school districts nationwide. As we move forward with field-testing the Science and Technology Concepts for Middle Schools
(STC/MS) program, we’re reaching out to even more districts.
The goal of the NSRC’s outreach program is to develop leaders to implement and
sustain science education reform. This requires partnering with schools, the scientific
and engineering communities, business and industry, academic institutions, and museums. In
recent years, the growing momentum for science education reform nationwide made it
essential that this work be decentralized. That is what our Leadership and Assistance for Science Education Reform
(LASER) initiative is all about. Working with and through a corps of leaders
nationwide, we will help initiate and sustain science education reform in 300 school
districts in eight diverse regions across the country.
Even information dissemination, which might initially seem a "one-way
street," has become a collaborative enterprise as a result of today’s
interactive electronic communications technology. With it, the NSRC can not only
disseminate information but also provide opportunities for users to communicate with us.
If you are reading ScienceLink, you are an NSRC partner, too. We welcome your ideas
(now easier to share than ever by means of our upgraded Web site), and we wish you well in
your efforts to support science education reform in your school or community. -Douglas
Lapp
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