Beyond Science Standards capture a vision of science education both whimsical and serious. Ranging across examples from elementary to university level classrooms and grounded in philosophy and history, the stories address dimensions beyond the realm of bureaucratic standards. Its thesis brings into question the premise of scientific unity and its representation in school as notions of method, process, nature, and practice. Schools, no less than the sciences, profit from playful exploration-of musical instruments in fourth grade physical science, for example, and hotel lobby decorative rock in a college geology course. Aesthetic expression permeates geologic interpretation and evolutionary insight-in depicting dentition, for instance, in the history of the horse family and linking this history to changing landscapes. Participating in collecting local, high altitude weather data enhances trust in climate science, especially when the observations benefit the local farming community. Allied with historical examples of the conduct of science, Beyond Science Standards offers the reader inspiring stories of science teaching, varying from place to place, time to time, discipline to discipline, and purpose to purpose.

For several decades educators have struggled to identify the attributes all sciences have in common. In the popular mind this effort constitutes the importance of teaching "the" scientific method. In the policy maker's world this pursuit yields standards for all Americans that unify the sciences. For teachers, the quest for unity has typically meant teaching science as process. However, a curriculum that prioritizes what all sciences have in common obscures their vital differences. For example, studying landslides is very different from doing x-ray diffraction; climate science is unlike medical research. Naive ideas about scientific unity impoverish the public's ability to evaluate scientific enterprises. Challenging Science Standards voices skepticism towards the quest for unity. Through analyses of disciplinary knowledge, school curricula, and classroom learning, the book uncovers flaws in the unifying dimensions of the science standards. It proposes respect for disciplinary diversity and attention to questions of value in choosing what science to teach. Illuminated by vignettes of children and adolescents studying topics ranging from snail populations to horse fossils, Challenging Science Standards proposes promising remedies.