The business of measuring student outcomes was difficult for several reasons. The districts were so heavily focused on reading and math skills that they were not testing science on their own. Our project did not have the clout to change that immediately. The NJ statewide testing in science did not exist until the halfway point in our project. That process is described in our poster.

It is hard to say at this point what the state test results mean. For one thing, the hands-on portion of the science test is fairly student-friendly and the scores tend to be higher than the language arts or math results in most of the urban districts. Some schools that partnered in our project from the early years, or that had a very high percentage of participating teachers, showed science proficiency levels of 85 - 100% when the statewide expectation was 70%. But other schools that did participate heavily and had low reading scores also scored low on the science. It is no surprise that the inability to read has consistently been related to low science scores.

We did some testing on our own by using some simple critical thinking tests. This was in a pre- and post-assessment situation during 4th and 5th grade summer science camps and in after-school science enrichment clubs which involved using STC teaching materials, and employed teachers from the same school (not special instructors). The test basically asks them to examine a mealworm and write a question about mealworms, then design an investigation to address that question. In a scale of 1- 5 there was usually an average gain of a point or more by the end of the program. While the student participants were not from gifted groups, they were volunteers, so this does not tell the whole story.

--Jackie