NGSS Edvotek Kits: Turning Students into Scientists!

Innovations in science and technology have it made our lives healthier, easier and safer. Yet, sometimes it seems like our students aren’t interested in learning about science.  We believe that scientific literacy is not only is crucial to understanding living and non-living organisms, but also is vital in helping our students make important and logical decisions that affect their lives.  To create good lab technicians, teachers, doctors, engineers, and other science professionals, a strong science foundation is a must. As such, science – and, hence, science education – is the foundation of the innovative culture of our nation.

The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) are a set of education standards that were developed in the mid 90’s through a collaborative effort of science educators from 26 states with the aim of transforming K-12 science education. The NGSS guidelines were set up to standardize science teaching and raise the number of high school graduates who would go on to obtain a college degree and a career in science. The NGSS

implementation will create more science graduates, and will ensure that students choosing different career paths will become critically savvy and have a strong science foundation. As a result of this effort, twelve states have adopted the standards: California, Delaware, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Rhode Island, Vermont, Oregon, Nevada, Washington, New Jersey and District of Columbia.

The NGSS guidelines and core ideas emphasize the most important aspects of disciplinary science: Life Sciences, Physical Sciences, Engineering Design, and Earth & Space Sciences. In all of these aspects of science, students are expected to demonstrate and apply the qualities of a real scientist by asking questions, defining problems, carrying out investigations, analyzing and interpreting data, and evaluating and designing solutions.

Being a biotechnology education company, we strongly endorse the Next Generation Science Standards! To help guide our teachers choose kits according to the new education guidelines, we have categorized our kits to help your students meet the Next Generation Science Standards. Have a look at our new NGSS Kit Selection guide on our resources page to help you with the selection of kits. Our kits have been categorized under the following NGSS categories:

Life Sciences Disciplinary Core Ideas

• LS1 –From Molecules to Organisms
• LS2 –Ecosystems: Interactions, Energy, & Dynamics
• LS3 –Heredity: Inheritance and Variation of Traits
• LS4 –Biological Evolution: Unity and Diversity

Physical Sciences Disciplinary Core Ideas

• PS1 –Matter and Its Interactions
• PS2 –Motion and Stability: Forces and Interactions
• PS3 –Energy

Engineering Design

You can now select your molecular biology science experiments according to Next Generation Science Standards (click here for a comprehensive NGSS Experiment Selection Guide). Stay tuned for more discussions on how our kits fit into the NGSS guidelines. Together, we will work to make our young men and women more scientifically informed for a better future!