9553877 Thier THis is a four year grant to the Science Education for Public Understanding Program (SEPUP) to develop, field test, and publish a life science curriculum for middle school science. The SEPUP design is an issue-oriented activity-based curriculum that is developed by science educators and scientists with continuous input from classroom teachers and their students. The curriculum is based on major life science concepts as they apply to real-life decision making by the individuals and along with the SEPUP physical science curriculum, Issues Evidence and You, forms two years of middle school integrated science. The proposed curriculum has three major content areas, My Body and Me-including reproduction and development and maintenance of the human body; Living Partnerships-including evolution and ecosystems; and Using Tools and Ideas - the ways which humans use tools and ideas to adapt the external environment. Four process-oriented components, Scientific thinking, Personal and Societal Decision Making, Science and Technology as Professions, and Futures Study, is integrated throughout the curriculum. The curriculum includes embedded assessment that allows teachers to measure the growth and development of students.
