Friday, December 14, 2007

Florida Tackles Evolution

Moving the opposite direction of Texas, the Florida State Board of Education is make a more concerted effort to adopt evolution.

The Florida Department of Education released a revision of the state standards in October that would require public school students to learn about evolution.

The first state standards, adopted in 1996, do not use the word evolution but require the teaching of evolutionary concepts.

In the new proposed benchmarks, evolution will be covered beginning in kindergarten. The first real use of the concept occurs when students start learning about fossils in seventh grade.

Kindergarten strikes me as kind of early, since Madeline, our almost six-year-old is still trying to understand what science is. Fossils in seventh grade, on the other hand, is way too late. Kids have a curiosity about fossils as early as second or third grade.

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