3A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 2017
Seaside students get new online science curriculum
Students learn
by doing, not
just watching
‘We know that excitement
will translate to the students
once school starts.’
By R.J. MARX
The Daily Astorian
SEASIDE — Students at
Seaside High School will see
big changes this fall with a
newly adopted science and
technology curriculum.
A science program, STEM-
scopes, helps kids get expe-
riential learning to meet
national standards. A com-
puter science program devel-
oped by Microsoft helps stu-
dents get the kind of computer
training needed to understand
advanced programming.
The program was devel-
oped by teachers and scien-
tists at Rice University in
Houston to meet national stan-
dards for science, known as
the Next Generation Science
Standards.
“Teachers were very
excited during the training
today,” Sande Brown, the Sea-
side School District’s cur-
riculum director, said after
a teacher training at the high
school Wednesday. “We know
Sande Brown,
Seaside School District’s curriculum director
Submitted Photo
Clockwise from top left, teachers Erin Meyer, Chuck Albright, Danielle Reese and Toni
Paino at a training in Seaside School District’s new technology curriculum.
that excitement will translate
to the students once school
starts. Excited students are
engaged students, and engaged
students are learning.”
The program focuses on
connecting science to reading,
writing, speaking and math
and helps students prepare for
careers in science and tech-
nology, Brown said. Students
learn by doing, not just watch-
ing, and kids work in groups
to solve problems.
“We are also excited about
this curriculum because it is our
school district’s first completely
online curriculum,” Brown
said. “By purchasing this
online curriculum instead of
textbooks, we were able to save
money and use some of that
money to purchase comput-
ers and science materials and
equipment for the classrooms.”
Although the curriculum is
online, teachers have the flex-
ibility of downloading and
printing paper copies of work-
sheets, information pages or
tests online in a program that
varies by grade level.
“The focus, however, is to
have students doing science,
not just be on the computer,”
Brown said.
The text is in both English
and Spanish, and the computer
can read out loud text in both
languages.
The “textbook” language
is differentiated by grade
level, above grade level, and
below grade level so students
of a range of reading lev-
els can access the new learn-
ing, Brown said. It also has a
connection to news and other
books on relevant science
topics.
The program is easily
updated and the company
makes corrections or sug-
gested revisions quickly.
The program focuses on
what educators call the “5 E’s”
of science education, Brown
said: engage, explore, explain,
elaborate and evaluate.
“This is a big leap forward
in having the new bonus of
having an online resource,”
Seaside School District Super-
intendent Sheila Roley said.
The school district typically
buys new textbooks every
seven years. The online com-
ponent will provide the oppor-
tunity for continuous updates,
she added.
“The critical thing to take
away is that we still believe
that science instruction is a
process of discovery for stu-
dents,” Roley said. “The heart
of the program is still science.”
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