ECU, schools to participate in study

(Apr. 28, 1994)   —   East Carolina University and two area high schools will participate in a nationwide project to develop and evaluate a new way of making science easier to teach and to learn. 

The project, sponsored by the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA), will use the new Scope, Sequence and Coordination (SS&C) approach to science teaching. SS&C was designed to make science more understandable, accessible and useful to students. It encourages personal problem-solving using science principles and teaches the relevance of science to subjects such as history, art and music. Dr. Charles Coble, dean of the ECU School of Education, will direct the project locally. He will select two North Carolina high schools as teaching sites. Eleven other public schools in the U.S. and Puerto Rico will also serve as sites.

A $4 million grant from the National Science Foundation will support the first phase of the project which will begin during the 1995-96 school year.
Only the freshman classes in each of the pilot schools will be involve initially. These classes will each use the new SS&C teaching materials for instruction in four subjects—biology, chemistry, physics and earth/space science. 

At the end of the first year, researchers will compare the achievements of the SS&C students to students from traditional classrooms that teach biology in the 10th grade, chemistry in the 11th grade and physics in the 12th grade. The project directors believe the SS&C approach will do a better job of preparing students to achieve national standards for knowledge in science education. 

Educators at the University of Minnesota at Minneapolis are directing the overall project. Other project sites, in addition to North Carolina, are in Texas, New York, Montana, Washington, D.C., California, Iowa and Puerto Rico.