The important features of Earth and space science standards for elementary , middle , and high school levels

T he Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), due to be released this spring, represents a revolutionary step toward establishing modern, national K–12 science education standards. Based on the recommendations of the National Research Council’s A Framework for K–12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas (NRC 2012), these performance expectations present a progressive approach to developing students’ understanding of science. The writing of the NGSS has been supervised by Achieve, Inc., the bipartisan not-for-profit organization that also supervised the writing of the math and English language arts Common Core (NGACBP/CCSSO 2010). The NGSS involves significant changes from traditional standards at all levels for all of the sciences, integrating three dimensions of science content, science practices, and the crosscutting, big-picture themes of science. Nowhere are these changes more apparent than for the Earth and space sciences (ESS), which now require a year of upper-level high school coursework.