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There is a critical need for improvement in science education.

Science and technology generate jobs, profits, and inventions and are important for the future of our democratic society. Students in our schools today need to be scientifically and mathematically prepared so that they can fill the jobs and meet the challenges of tomorrow's society. Current school reform efforts have focused on firmly implanting science in schools where there is often little time for science, inadequate materials and equipment, or teachers lacking science content knowledge. The National Center of Education statistics (1991) found that only 5% of elementary teachers are math or science specialists. A National Science Teachers Association 1985-85 survey found that 34% of elementary teachers have had at least one course in three science areas: biological, physical, and earth sciences. Unfortunately, completion of course work does not correlate with the teachers feeling sufficiently competent to teach science. In the same NSTA survey, only 4% of those surveyed felt qualified to teach science.

TOPS helps to improve science education.

There is a need for job-embedded science content assistance for teachers.

TOPS gives teachers science content assistance while they are teaching as part of their school day. TOPS Partners have taught lessons, provided content expertise during content discussions and formed relationships with teachers to answer pressing content questions that will ultimately enhance their science teaching.

As one teacher in a TOPS school recently offered: "Every time he (the TOPS scientist) comes to my class, I learn something new." TOPS' special way of impacting science improvement with teachers in the classroom and during lunch, after school and during break periods is an answer to the hindrances of finding time in teachers' schedules to devote to science staff development activities.

"The teacher is the key to effective science reform. All the other pieces can be in place, but the reform movement will fail if classroom instructors do not have satisfactory training, knowledge, and support systems." (Sussman, 1993).

TOPS provides content instruction for teachers.

Under-represented students need the assistance of TOPS

With the exception of Asians, minorities are a small proportion of scientists and engineers nationally. Blacks, Hispanics, and American Indians as a group were 23% of the U.S. population, but only 6% of the total science and engineering labor force. Likewise, women constitute 51% of the U.S. population, 48% of the labor force, but only 22% of scientists and engineers in the labor force.

Women and minorities are under-represented in scientific and engineering occupations, take fewer high-level mathematics and science courses in high school, earn fewer bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees in science and engineering, and are less likely to be employed in science and engineering than are white males (National Science Foundation, 1993). Data from the Longitudinal Study of American Youth (Miller, et. al., 1990) indicate only 1/3 of all students and 1/4 of all female students reported an interest in science, mathematics, and technologically related careers by 7th grade.

Minority and female students need to be reached early to spark their enthusiasm for science and to give them a good foundation on which to build for further scientific study.

Preservice and new inservice teachers need science content knowledge

The National Commission on Teaching and America's Future is clear in its report What Matters Most: Teaching for America's Future (1995): "To meet the needs of the 21st century, schools must successfully teach many more students from much more diverse backgrounds. They must help them master more challenging content many times more effectively than they have ever done before. This means that teachers must understand students and their many pathways to learning as deeply as they comprehend subject and teaching methods."

The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, in its publication, What Teachers Should Know and Be Able to Do (1994), states that early adolescent teachers should possess the "factual information that demarcates the body of knowledge in the life, physical, and earth and space sciences." Instead of entering teaching with subject matter content fresh in their minds, new teachers spend their first two years trying to catch up to their veteran colleagues.

TOPS has provided special science content sessions taught with hands-on materials to inservice teachers.

Parent and classroom aide science education is sorely needed

An editorial in the American Scientist (1998) estimated that this nation's population is only 5% scientifically literate.

Current research emphasizes that:

1) families provide the primary educational environment

2) parents' involvement in their children's educations improves student achievement

3) children from low-income and culturally and racially diverse families have the most to gain when schools involve parents (California State Board of Education, 1994). Parents spark early interest in science and can support classroom lessons, but they need to be introduced to science in a fun, non-threateneing way.

TOPS has provided science family events at member schools with much success.