GLENDALE : Board OKs Revised Science Curriculum

Science can be fun.

That’s a main goal of a new, districtwide science curriculum approved Tuesday during a Glendale school board meeting.

“The focus will be away from facts of science and more on the exploration of science,” said Lincoln Elementary Principal Sally Buckley, one of several staff members who worked on revising the curriculum for the Glendale Unified School District.

In the past, students from kindergarten to 12th grade learned about physical, earth and life science concepts from textbooks, films or pictures. Experiments were rare in the classroom, school officials said.

The revised teaching plan--based on recommendations from the state education department--covers themes relating to physical, earth and life science. They include energy, evolution, matter, patterns of change, scale and structure, stability and systems and interactions. Students in elementary school, for example, will learn about ecology by taking care of live animals in the classroom, Buckley said.

“The teacher will help students realize what happens to living things in different environmental situations,” she said.

The district is expected to begin using the revised curriculum by early 1994, although some campuses, such as Lincoln, have been trying out new lessons this semester.

“This is a major change,” said Gregory A. Bowman, the district’s director of curriculum and instruction. The last time the district revised its science curriculum was between 1986 and 1988, he said.