TAKE ACTION by 24 July 2009! Consultation on the new Primary Curriculum in England: Science and evolution!

source: British Humanist Association e-bulletin, 22 June 2009 & BHA site.

What is the issue?

In January 2008 the Government commissioned a review looking at both the organisation and content of the National Curriculum taught in primary schools in England. The review was lead by Sir Jim Rose. His final report was published on 30 April 2009.

The changes that have been proposed by the Rose Review have now been put out to public consultation. The consultation is being conducted by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA). The public consultation will run until 24 July 2009, after which point the Government will consider how to proceed.

BHA position

The BHA broadly welcomes the proposed new curriculum. However, we have particular concerns regarding the new ‘scientific and technological understanding’ area of learning, which is one of six new ‘areas of learning’ that have been put forward as the new structure of the curriculum.

Our main concern is that the ‘scientific and technological understanding’ area of learning makes no requirement for pupils to learn about and investigate the concepts of natural selection and evolution. We believe that the theory of evolution – arguably the single most important idea underlying the life sciences today – must be included in the primary curriculum.

The wealth of new educational resources on evolution available for children of primary school age demonstrates their ability to grasp the simpler concepts associated with it, and a basic understanding of evolution will help lay the foundation for a surer scientific understanding later on in children’s school life.

With 2009 being the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species, the omission of evolution from the curriculum of primary schools is scandalous.

What can be done?

Please write to your MP, urging them to support the inclusion of natural selection and evolution in the primary curriculum. You can use our online facility to email your MP directly athttp://tinyurl.com/evolutioninprimaryschool.

Please also make a submission to the QCA’s public consultation, which you can do by downloading the consultation questionnaire online at http://www.qca.org.uk/qca_22265.aspx.

You can read the BHA's own response to the consultation at http://tinyurl.com/bhaprimaryreviewsubmission.

Here the BHA not only make more detailed comments about other weakness in ‘scientific and technological understanding’, but also in some of the other areas of learning. If you agree with the BHA's comments in these other areas then please do consider responding to these sections of the consultation as well.

If you are a teacher, please explore the possibility of your school making a response to the consultation to urge for the changes we are looking for.

If you are a member of a political party, you can write to the education contact or spokesperson of your party to urge them to support the changes we are seeking. For Labour, this is Rt Hon. Ed Balls MP on ed@edballs.com, for Conservatives this is Michael Gove MP ongovem@parliament.uk, for Liberal Democrats this is David Laws on lawsd@parliament.uk.

Please do all the above insofar as you are in a position to do so.

Please copy any submissions you make or correspondence you enter into on this subject to Paul Pettinger at the BHA (paul@humanism.org.uk or by post to British Humanist Association, 1 Gower Street, London WC1E 6HD).

Curriculum reform consultation to 24 July 2009: Teach 'Evolution' & 'Scientific Method' in Primary Schools

Dear Simon Watmough, QCA, on behalf of the Department for Children, Schools and Families

Date: 23 July 2009

Cfi Paul Pettinger, British Humanist Association

Cfi David Flint, Humanists4Science, Chairman

Cfi Desmond Swayne MP, New Forest West

Cfi Diana Johnson MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Schools

Please find attached our Primary Curriculum reform consultation questionnaire: H4S_Primary_school_Evolution_FINAL3.pdf

Please note our comments on pages 16-17 about teaching ‘Evolution’ and ‘Scientific Method’ in Primary Schools.

Regards,

Chris Street BSc MBA

Humanists4Science committee member

www.Humanists4Science.org.uk

British Humanist Association member

www.humanism.org.uk

Humanists4Science Curriculum reform consultation (21 page pdf)

Letters from Desmond Swayne MP & Diana Johnson MP

Diana Johnson MP is Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools.

What are the Key Stages?

The National Curriculum applies to pupils of compulsory school age in community and foundation schools, including community special schools and foundation special schools, and voluntary aided and voluntary controlled schools. It is organised on the basis of four key stages.

Key stage 1: Ages 5-7 (Years 1-2)

Key stage 2: Ages 7-11 (Years 3-6)

Key stage 3: Ages 11-14 (Years 7-9)

Key stage 4: Ages 14-16 (Years 10-11).

At key stages 1 and 2 the statutory subjects that all pupils must study are art and design, design and technology, English, geography, history, information and communication technology, mathematics, music, physical education and science. Religious education must also be provided at key stages 1 and 2.

This content relates to the 1999 programmes of study and attainment targets.

Take Action - Sign the No10 Petition

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to include the teaching of evolution by natural selection in the new national primary curriculum. More details

Submitted by Mr David Flint – Deadline to sign up by: 18 August 2009 –Signatures: 330

British Council surveys Evolutionary Theory

source: http://www.britishcouncil.org/darwinnow-survey-uk.pdf

A survey has been made available by the British Council, for completion by the general public in each of these countries. This can be found by visiting: www.zoomerang.com/Survey/survey.zgi?p=WEB229CD3MTHT5.

Over the coming months, this survey will create the largest data set ever gathered on the public’s understanding of evolutionary theory.

Survey shows broad acceptance of evolution, with some worries

TUESDAY, 7 JULY 2009

Survey shows broad acceptance of evolution, with some worries

Last week, the British Council released the results of a survey it had commissioned, showing broad international acceptance for the theory of evolution.

Press Release.

The survey, conducted by Ipsos MORI and part of the Council’sDarwin Now project, questioned over ten thousand adults from ten countries about their knowledge and opinions on Darwin and his theory.

The results showed that 70 per cent of participants had heard of Darwin and most knew at least a little about the theory of evolution.

The highest level of knowledge was in Great Britain and the US (71 per cent in both), followed by Mexico (68 per cent), Argentina (65 per cent), China (54 per cent) and Russia (53 per cent).

However, in Egypt, 62 per cent of adults said they had never heard of Darwin or evolution – a statistic that reached a staggering 73 per cent in South Africa.

Other results:

• Most people (56 per cent, all countries) who had heard of Charles Darwin and evolution agreed that “enough scientific evidence exists to support Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution”.
  
• However, less than half of those surveyed in Russia (48 per cent), South Africa (42 per cent), the US (41 per cent), and Egypt (25 per cent) agreed with the statement.
• Asked if “it is possible to believe in a God and still hold the view that life on Earth, including human life, evolved over time as a result of natural selection”, people in India agreed most (85 per cent). This was followed by Mexico (65 per cent), Argentina (62 per cent), South Africa (54 per cent), Great Britain (54 per cent), Russia (54 per cent), US (53 per cent), Spain (46 per cent), Egypt (45 per cent) and China (39 per cent).

More specific results for Great Britain:

• 54 per cent of British participants believe it is possible to believe in a God and evolution.
• Almost a quarter (23 per cent) of those surveyed in London believe in creationism. Twenty per cent of London participants said they had never heard of Charles Darwin or evolution (though thankfully 48 per cent agreed that there was enough scientific evidence to support evolutionary theory).
• Up North, 23 per cent said they have no understanding of evolutionary theory.
• However, in each region of Great Britain, the vast majority of people (74-87 per cent) were aware of evolution and Darwin, even though, generally, only half of the participants in each region thought they had a “good” or “fairly good” understanding of how evolution works.
  

I don’t have the complete data in front of me, so I can’t tell how many people were surveyed in each region (which could skew the stats). However, I do find the results generally encouraging (even if the London results are a little bit worrying).

I am wondering though, whether the ‘understanding of evolutionary theory’ result is a worrying statistic or not. Is ~50 per cent good or bad? Because really, if only half the people feel they have a "fairly good" understand the concept, it’s no wonder there are still many who dismiss it out of hand. Indeed, the press release from the British Council points out that "one-in-five British adults surveyed had not spent any time thinking about the origins of species and life on earth" (again though, I don’t have the data to work out how they came to that statistic).

The British Council is running another, larger survey, for the general public to volunteer their opinions, which they hope will create the largest data set ever gathered on the public’s understanding of evolution. To take part visit the website.

Evolution of confusion

News | Published in The TES on 3 July, 2009 | By: Adi Bloom

• Comment:

• Section:

  News

Pupils take dinosaur fiction for fact

Academic says failure to teach young children scientific truth plays into creationists’ hands

All pupils should be taught evolution from primary school onwards so they do not mistake Barney the dinosaur for scientific fact, a leading science education academic has said.

James Williams, lecturer in education at the University of Sussex, believes TV programmes such as The Flintstones and Barney & Friends, as well as films such as One Million Years BC (pictured), starring Raquel Welch as a bikini-clad cavewoman, have created a pop-culture cliche of interaction between humans and dinosaurs which is exploited by creationists.

Addressing the British Humanist Association this month, Mr Williams said creationists deliberately feed children scientific misconceptions. Children then build on these, adapting all new knowledge so that it fits into their mistaken understanding of the world.

He said: “It is intellectual abuse when a person in a position of power and authority, claiming expertise in science, deliberately provides a non- scientific explanation for the development and diversity of life on earth.”

The earlier and more established the misconceptions, the more difficult it can be to correct them in later life, he said.

Because most children love dinosaurs, creationists tempt them with books, toys and museums featuring assorted prehistoric wildlife. Their literature targets primary pupils, presenting pseudoscientific explanations alongside images of dinosaurs in the Garden of Eden or descriptions of dinosaurs dying out during the great flood. Popular culture unwittingly reinforces this, with images of Fred Flintstone riding a dinosaur to work or Raquel Welch fending off a giant tortoise.

“We’re often on the back foot, responding to creationist attacks, rather than getting on with the job of preventing bankrupt pseudoscience from making an impression on young minds,” Mr Williams said.

He called for education about evolution to start early. At the moment, far too much is left until key stage 4, he said. “Misconceptions set in primary will be very difficult, if not impossible, to correct over 10 years later.”

Teachers should be practised in combating creationist arguments, he said. “Science is about the acceptance of evidence, and is not a belief system. We should resist talking about a belief in evolution.”

And scientists should watch their language, he said. Many mistakenly confuse the words “theory” and “hypothesis”: in scientific terms, a theory is a clearly proven fact.

“As a community of scientists and science educators, we can prevent the ideas being taken on as factual, and we can prevent the misconceptions taking hold,” Mr Williams said. “We can only do this, however, if we are proactive in teaching evolution at an earlier stage in schooling, and we can only prevent it with robust examples from the vast weight of scientific evidence for evolution that currently exists.”

james.williams@sussex.ac.uk

Appliance of science

Begin evolution education at primary

• Provide more up-to-date examples of evolution in teaching resources.
• Give teachers tools to combat creationist arguments in class.
• Remember, evolution is scientifically proven, not a belief system; a hypothesis is not yet proven, but a theory is scientifically watertight.

Source: James Williams.

Just a brief comment to make a minor correction to the story.

Quote:"And scientists should watch their language, he said. Many mistakenly confuse the words “theory” and “hypothesis”, in scientific terms, a theory is a clearly proven fact."

This is an indirect quotation from me not my actual words (hence no quote marks). A scientific theory is a well evidenced explanation of a natural phenomenon a theory is not a fact and facts are not theories. Scientific theories explain the observations and data that we gather.This minor error just goes to show how difficult it is when reporting science in the media and how precise we must be when using the language of science. James Williams.

14:38pm
3 July, 2009

James Williams

Darwin, Humanism and Science - James Williams

James Williams talks to the Darwin, Humanism and Science day conference (6 Jun 2009) on "Insidious Creationism" and why we should teach children early in their education about geological time and the theory of evolution. More in his published BioEssays September 2009. Belief versus acceptance: Why do people not believe in evolution?

Friday’s Times Educational Supplement featured an article on James Williams and his talk at our recent Darwin, Humanism and Science day conference. We've now posted James Williams' talk to our YouTube channel www.youtube.com/britishhumanists as the second in a series of videos from the day. Williams suggests that “insidious Creationism” is a genuine threat in the UK and explains why children need to encounter geological time and natural selection early in their education. To take action along exactly the lines Williams lays out, see http://www.humanism.org.uk/primaryscience.