LASER’s First Year a Great Success
Vol. 11, No. 2, Fall/Winter 1999
Now entering its second year, the NSRC’s Leadership
and Assistance for Science Education Reform (LASER) initiative is producing results in
participating regions across the country. Here’s a quick overview of what’s been
accomplished to date in four of the eight LASER regions.
Oklahoma
Oklahoma State University (OSU) and eight other Oklahoma universities had been working
on science education reform for several years when Oklahoma was chosen as a LASER site.
"We were ready to develop a strategic planning institute of our own, but NSRC’s
experience...gave us a very good structure to follow," explains Smith Holt, dean of
OSU’s College of Arts and Sciences.
Oklahoma’s goal is to introduce inquiry-centered science education in all of the
state’s 55 school districts. The state held its first LASER Strategic Planning
Institute in June 1998. The purpose of these six-day sessions, one of three types of
conferences being sponsored by LASER, is to enable participants to create five-year plans
for reforming K-8 science education in their school districts. As a result of that
meeting, at least two school districts have decided to implement across-the-board science
education reform.
Orange County, California
"LASER came at just the right time for us," says Julia Wan, director of the
Center for Excellence in Science and Mathematics Education (CESME) at California State
University, Fullerton, and director of the Orange County regional site.
Wan was writing a proposal to the Beckman Foundation when the NSRC notified her that
Orange County had been designated a LASER site. "I stated in the proposal that we
could use Beckman funds to help implement the LASER program in all 27 school
districts," she recalls. "I think having a LASER site in Orange County is one of
the reasons we got this $14.4-million grant."
With Beckman funding, Orange County has been able to offer $200,000 incentive grants to
school districts that participate in the LASER Strategic Planning Institutes. Four Orange
County districts participated in the first LASER institute in California, held in July
1998, as did five districts from Idaho and Washington State that are part of the
Hewlett-Packard Company’s K-12 Science Education Program.
Representatives from 18 other Orange County districts signed up to attend another LASER
program, the Developing a New Vision of Science
Teaching and Learning Conference, held in Irvine, California, in November. These
one-day conferences introduce inquiry-based science education as an effective alternative
to science taught in traditional ways. Following up on this beginning, many of the
participants attended a LASER Curriculum Showcase
in January 1999. The showcases, the third in the series of LASER events that will
eventually be held in each participating region, feature interactive workshops at which
participants examine a variety of exemplary K-8 science curricula and learn about
effective curriculum evaluation tools. As word of LASER spreads in the area, several
districts have asked to attend the second Strategic Planning Institute, scheduled for
April 1999.
Tri-State Partnership
In recent years, the Bristol-Myers Squibb Company and the Merck Institute for Science
Education have been working with school districts on separate reform projects. Now that
the Tri-State Partnership (New Jersey, eastern Pennsylvania, and southern Connecticut) has
been designated a LASER site, the two companies, as well as their other partners from the
New Jersey Statewide Systemic Initiative and the Building Bridges to the Future
Industry-Educator Partnership, are enjoying the fruits of collaboration, says Anders
Hedberg, director of science education initiatives for the Bristol-Myers Squibb
Foundation. "We’re already jelling as a coherent leadership team," he
reports. Carlo Parravano, director of the Merck Institute for Science Education, is also
enthusiastic about progress. "We’re really drawing on each other’s
strengths," he says. "As a result, we can offer resources to our partners that
we would have been unable to provide working separately."
Thirty-five teams attended the site’s first Developing a New Vision of Science
Teaching and Learning Conference, held in June 1998. The Tri-State Partnership’s
first Strategic Planning Institute was held in December.
Washington State
Washington has long been in the vanguard of science education reform. Since the state
was designated as a regional LASER site, leaders are poised to go even further. The
site’s first Developing a New Vision of Science Teaching and Learning Conference is
scheduled for February 1999. A Strategic Planning Institute will follow in June. The goal
is to implement LASER reform efforts in 120 of the state’s 296 districts during the
next five years.
Fundraising is a major challenge for the Washington State site, according to Dennis
Schatz, associate director of the Pacific Science Center, a LASER partner. He explains,
"LASER provides us with leverage. We are able to tell potential funders that NSRC is
already providing resources and that we now need money for technical assistance and
professional development to implement the program. -Lorraine Coffey
[To Receive ScienceLink]
[Index of Articles]
|