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Articles and media about the state of science education in California and across the nation
California teachers lack the resources and time to teach science
Los Angeles Times
California, known as a global symbol of scientific and technological excellence, is failing to invest enough time, money and training to teach science well, according to interviews and a new survey of more than 1,100 elementary school teachers and administrators.
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High Hopes – Few Opportunities: The Status of Elementary Science Education in California
WestEd
High Hopes – Few Opportunities: The Status of Elementary Science Education in California
reveals that intense pressure to meet accountability goals in mathematics and English has limited time for science, and teachers and schools do not have the infrastructure support needed to consistently provide students with quality science learning opportunities.
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Elementary schools not teaching enough science, study finds
Orange County Register
Forty percent of elementary educators in California's public schools say they spend an hour or less teaching science each week, while more than half of elementary principals acknowledge their kids won't get a high-quality science education by the time they go to middle school, according to a new study that highlights the challenges of delivering science instruction in the primary grades.
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Science Labs in Elementary School?
education.com
Science activities in the early grades are what lay the groundwork for student understanding in the subject, and we’re talking hands-on lab experiments, not just reading dull textbooks. The NSTA says hands-on investigation through laboratory experimentation is the best way to introduce students to scientific inquiry, the process of asking questions and conducting experiments as a way to understand the natural world, which is the foundation of science education.
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Science courses nearly extinct in elementary grades, study finds
San Francisco Chronicle
About 80 percent of teachers [in 2007] said they spent less than an hour each week teaching science, according to researchers from the Lawrence Hall of Science at UC Berkeley and from WestEd, an education think tank based in San Francisco. In contrast, a national study seven years ago found elementary school science instruction averaged more than two hours per week, said Rena Dorph, the lead researcher on the new study.
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Lighting up elementary school science with 'lab before the blab'
PBS Newshour
This fourth grade science classroom at Barnhart Elementary School in St. Charles, Md., usually sounds like chaos, said their teacher Leigh Ann Anderson. This is due in large part to her teaching style. She skips the textbooks and goes straight to the hands-on experiment.
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High Hopes – Few Opportunities: The Status of Elementary Science Education in California reveals that intense pressure to meet accountability goals in mathematics and English has limited time for science, and teachers and schools do not have the infrastructure support needed to consistently provide students with quality science learning opportunities. 
Forty percent of elementary educators in California's public schools say they spend an hour or less teaching science each week, while more than half of elementary principals acknowledge their kids won't get a high-quality science education by the time they go to middle school, according to a new study that highlights the challenges of delivering science instruction in the primary grades.
Science activities in the early grades are what lay the groundwork for student understanding in the subject, and we’re talking hands-on lab experiments, not just reading dull textbooks. The NSTA says hands-on investigation through laboratory experimentation is the best way to introduce students to scientific inquiry, the process of asking questions and conducting experiments as a way to understand the natural world, which is the foundation of science education. 
This fourth grade science classroom at Barnhart Elementary School in St. Charles, Md., usually sounds like chaos, said their teacher Leigh Ann Anderson. This is due in large part to her teaching style. She skips the textbooks and goes straight to the hands-on experiment.