Chances of America's revival as a science-literate nation may rest on the results of this FSU-led effort.

They trotted out colorful flipcharts and graphs. They used overhead projectors. They brought in experts who spoke--for days on end--in the simplest of terms.

And yet the only clear message to come from the attempt at explaining the underlying principles of DNA fingerprinting to the O.J. Simpson jury this spring was that when it comes to science, the average American has the grasp of a Neanderthal.

The evidence is everywhere you look--from the abysmal science scores in the nation's classrooms to the dimwitted daily news: a recent AP wire story on an epidemic of poisoned hamburgers confused the real cause of the deadly malady, bacteria, with viruses.

Symptoms go far beyond the ludicrous Hollywood images of humans cavorting with dinosaurs (e.g. "The Flintstones") and the techno-tease of "Jurassic Park." By any measure one can name, Americans today are fundamentally less informed on basic matters of science and technology than previous generations. As if that's not sobering enough, the trend toward "dumb and dumber" has even taken on a sexy cachet--it's now cool to be stupid.

The scope of the nation's ignorance was showcased in 1983, when the National Commission on Excellence in Education published the booket: A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform. The Commission got right to the point:

"If an unfriendly foreign power had attemped to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war."

The commission called for, among other things, the establishment of much higher standards. Five years later, a top chief executive and senior researcher again tried to hammer home that crucial point.

"America will fail to meet the competitive challenge if high standards are not set and met. It's that simple," wrote Xerox Corporation CEO David Kearns and Hudson Institute Researcher Denis Doyle, in their book Winning the Brain Race: A Bold Plan to Make our Schools Competetive. "The rest--all the hype and hoopla, all the talk about reform--will be naught if standards are not raised."

A decade after Risk, by all accounts standards for public classroom instruction in the sciences have slipped even lower. Despite repeated calls for reform, political realities and inertia built into an entrenched educational system increasingly under fire by conservatives and liberals alike have combined to thwart significant improvement.

Still, the will to raise standards remains strong in many important quarters. The Risk report touched a nerve in Congress, and at least one vestige of the initial shock of its findings survives.

Dr. Angelo Collins (Ph.D. Wisconsin) is the director of the National Science Education Standards Project, which can trace its origin to the 1983 Risk report. For the past three years, Collins has shuttled between her post as an associate professor of science education at FSU and Washington, orchestrating development of a new approach toward turning things around in the nation's classrooms.

The work has produced a draft of new standards that may eventually raise the criteria for millions of American youth exposed to science instruction from kindergarten to the 12th grade. Although the final report isn't due until December, more than 35,000 copies of the draft have gone out to teachers, scientists, parents and school districts nationwide. Collins and other project staff have also made more than 200 presentations to explain the proposed standards, and digested comments from more than 1,700 respondents.

"The kinds of changes we're calling for in here are radical," Collins says, tapping the nearly inch-and-a-half-thick draft. "We are envisioning a classroom where learning is something kids do, not something that is done to them. That calls for a major change in teaching strategy."

The need for such an overhaul in science and mathematics education has been painfully obvious for more than a decade, Collins says. Yet assessments show little has been done.

According to the 1992 National Education Goals Report, no country scored lower than the U.S. on a science and mathematics achievement test given to 13-year-olds from the United States and 19 other countries in 1991. The same report also concluded that "Surveys of students and parents indicate a prevailing attitude in this country that science and mathematics are not important subjects for most students and that high achievement results from Ôhaving the right genes,' not from hard work."

The official call to create national science education standards finally came in 1992, when the National Science Teachers Association asked the National Academy of Sciences to help coordinate their efforts. Funding came from the National Science Foundation, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Department of Education.

"Because the idea was national in scope, the infrastructure that was put together to do this was mammoth," Collins said. She describes becoming the standards staff director in 1993 as something that "entails losing your mind."

But when the organizational dust had cleared, Collins said, "We had three primary working groups: one looked at the quality of science content, one at teaching, and one at assessment. If we were going to change education, we knew we had to look at all three at the same time."

What national standards can do?

At the very least, Collins said, standards goals should help school administrators and teachers know what their science goals should be. FSU science education Prof. George Dawson agrees.

"Creating a standard is like raising a flag," he said. "It's something visible, something to always keep in mind."

The standards, however, are not meant as a federal mandate.

"The science-education standards are not a national curriculum," Collins said. "They are not intended to be. They are voluntary criteria for judging the quality of science education."

The standards are also meant to help show what it means to genuinely teach science to today's students--something that occurs in too few science classrooms in Florida and elsewhere, according to Bob Lumsden, a science education administrator with the Florida Department of Education.

"While there are a lot of good teachers out there clamoring for change, there's an awful lot of them who don't even know there's a problem," Lumsden said.

The final standards report will provide impetus to bring about that needed change, Collins hopes.

"The focus of science teaching needs to be on inquiry and understanding, rather than memorization and recall," she said. "So much of our science teaching, is ÔHere are the answers, memorize them.' Science as a way of thinking and learning just isn't taught in many schools. When science is reduced to terms to be memorized, what I would call the power of science gets lost."

To guarantee that such power finds its way into the classroom, the standards draft report includes criteria for the professional development of science teachers as well as assessment standards and science content standards from kindergarten through 12th grade.

Some schools already are using the draft standards to make some curriculum changes.

"In Leon County Schools, we're already using it to help us guide our decisions," said Joel Dawson, the school district's science coordinator. "I see it as being a very important document in helping people re-examine how they are teaching science and what is important."

Progress in the day of cuts?

Collins and others worry that governmental cuts in funding for science education may affect many schools' ability to use the report to make needed changes. Florida, for example, has already begun to raid its higher-education budget to pay for prison expansion.

"The political climate in this country has changed drastically since the time we started this project," notes Collins.

"I am seeing some alarming trends," George Dawson said. "I'm beginning to see evidence that the interest in science has peaked. I don't think we can afford that, given the kind of technological society we have today."

No question, making some of the standards work is going to take money, Collins said.

"We cannot make changes this radical without support," she said. "Certainly, support means dollars; support also means time (for teachers to prepare their lessons), support means class size, which goes back to dollars; and support means equipment."

A seemingly devastating financial blow was dealt the standards project in the wake of the Republican political platform known as the Contract with America. Money originally intended to help schools adopt new methods of teaching science based on the standards was rerouted. "A federal tool that we had anticipated would be there is no longer there," Collins said.

Yet despite that setback, she remains hopeful.

"State networks, planners, major assessment firms and curriculum development companies have been eagerly snarfing up every draft and adjusting their curriculum materials accordingly," she said.

"It's my opinion that we have done such a pervasive job of spreading the vision of what science teaching and learning might be like (in this country) that I don't think the vision is going to be hurt by this.

"At last, there's a critical mass of people in lots of different professions who will look for this project as a way to get us where we want to go."