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While the Next Generation Science Standards ask teachers to take a new approach to instruction, they also empower teachers and students to be scientists together.

Like many districts throughout California and the nation, the San Mateo-Foster City School District has been transitioning to the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). While we’ve been preparing for the shift for years, this is the first school year that we’ve had the standards and an NGSS-aligned curriculum in place throughout our elementary schools.

As the Teacher on Special Assignment (TOSA) tasked with overseeing the transition for our district, I’ve found the NGSS to be a powerful framework for bringing all students—and not just those who excel at or enjoy science—into the world of inquiry and wonder that science makes available. As exciting as the new standards are to some educators, it’s a big change to the way we teach science and, as such, can cause quite a bit of anxiety.

This is how we’ve tried to make that transition as smooth as possible, and why we think it’s worth the work, for both students and their teachers.

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