The second and final public draft of the Next Generation Science Standards is set for the first week in January.
All educators, stakeholders and the public are encouraged to review the NGSS draft as an individual or in groups and provide feedback. The National Science Teachers Association has developed an NGSS study group packet to support educators in reviewing the NGSS draft.
Maine is one of 26 states taking the lead in developing a new set of academic standards that will define the science concepts and content students will need to learn to be successful in the workforce, economy and society of the coming decades.
The NGSS will be completed in March of 2013. Since the May 2012 draft release, the lead states and the writers evaluated all feedback and worked to revise the standards. As a result, over 90 percent of the standards have seen some level of revision. In addition, the lead states charged the NGSS team with finalizing the definition for college and career readiness in science. The NGSS underwent a second round of revision to ensure the standards supported this definition.
The Department will share more information about the release of the second NGSS draft in the upcoming weeks.