The five-year, $3.7 million grant awarded to the Carnegie Institution, located in Washington, will be used to create a new entity: the Carnegie Academy for Science Education (CASE). The academy will offer a series of six-week teacher-training programs combining expertise from educators and scientists to introduce to Washington-based teachers innovative methods for getting elementary students excited about science.
"I'm very pleased to see that it [CASE] is happening in Washington, D.C.... I think it's important to show what this hands-on science education can do for children in Washington, where it is visible to important leaders," says Bruce Alberts, president of the National Academy of Sciences and a vocal proponent of science education reform.
Science education in the United States is in the midst of a major reform movement, scientists and educators say; it is also, some of them warn, in crisis. "We have a tremendous national problem," says Bruce Alberts, ...
