OpenSciEd, an effort led by partner states, educational leaders, curriculum developers, and philanthropic organizations to improve the supply of and demand for high-quality K-12 science materials, announced the selection of a Development Consortium who will lead the development of a three-year high school curriculum aligned to the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). The selected development team of world class curriculum developers is led by the University of Colorado Boulder and includes BSCS Science Learning, Northwestern University, Denver Public Schools, and the Charles A. Dana Center at the University of Texas Austin.
Development of high school materials will begin in January of 2021 with the intention of publicly releasing a complete three-year sequence of courses by January 2024. The competitive process to select the Developers Consortium included a number of strong teams from across the country, yet the team assembled by the University of Colorado set itself apart with the tremendous collection of science education experts.
The goal of OpenSciEd is to develop a K-12 program designed to address standards based on the Framework for K-12 Science Education, specifically the NGSS. OpenSciEd began this journey in the middle school grades and to-date has publicly released 8 units of instruction; the complete grades 6 through 8 science program is scheduled for release by February 2022. All OpenSciEd materials are released as CC-BY-4.0 content so that they can be freely used and adapted. As a distinction from other Open Education Resources (OER) developers, OpenSciEd is providing the field with both freely available classroom and professional learning materials.
This next phase of the project is made possible by the generous philanthropic support of the Carnegie Corporation of New York (CCNY). The middle grades work is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, CCNY, Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.