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NCSE Evolution and Climate Education Update for 2017/11/17

(by NCSE Deputy Director Glenn Branch)

Dear friends of NCSE,

Congratulations to Bertha Vazquez and the whole state of New Mexico.

CONGRATULATIONS TO BERTHA VAZQUEZ

NCSE is pleased to congratulate Bertha Vazquez on receiving the
Evolution Education Award for 2017 from the National Association of
Biology Teachers. Vazquez received the award at the NABT's recent
conference in St. Louis, Missouri.

The NABT award, sponsored by BEACON and BSCS, "recognizes innovative
classroom teachers and their efforts to promote the accurate
understanding of biological evolution with the larger community."

A member of NCSE and a guest contributor to NCSE's blog (see, e.g.,
her "Sharing the Passion for Evolution Education"), Vazquez teaches at
G. W. Carver Middle School in Miami. and directs the Richard Dawkins
Foundation's Teacher Institute for Evolutionary Science.

For information about NABT's awards, visit:
https://www.nabt.org/Awards-About 

For Vazquez's "Sharing the Passion for Evolution Education," visit:
https://ncse.com/blog/2015/08/sharing-passion-evolution-education-0016580 

And for the Teacher Institute for Evolutionary Science, visit:
https://www.richarddawkins.net/ties/ 

VICTORY IN NEW MEXICO

New Mexico is now officially the nineteenth state to have adopted the
Next Generation Science Standards. On November 14, 2017, the New
Mexico Register (containing the state's administrative rules) was
updated to specify that the NGSS, along with six New-Mexico-specific
additions, would be the New Mexico STEM-ready science standards.

As NCSE previously reported, New Mexico was embroiled in controversy
after the Public Education Department proposed the adoption of a set
of standards modeled on the performance expectations of the NGSS, but
revised to weaken their treatment of evolution, climate change, and
the age of the earth.

The proposal was generally unpopular, with scientific, educational,
environmental, business, and faith groups across the state expressing
their opposition. Ultimately, the Public Education Department
capitulated, expressing its intention to adopt the NGSS in their
entirety with the addition of the six New-Mexico-specific standards.

With the publication of the new rules, that intention was fulfilled.
In adopting the NGSS, New Mexico joins Arkansas, California,
Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky,
Maryland, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode
Island, Vermont, and Washington, as well as the District of Columbia.

For the entry in the New Mexico Register, visit:
http://164.64.110.239/nmregister/xxviii/xxviii21/6.29.10.htm 

And for NCSE's previous coverage of events in New Mexico, visit:
https://ncse.com/news 

WHAT'S NEW AT NCSE'S BLOG?

Have you been visiting NCSE's blog recently? If not, then you've missed:

* Ann Reid describing NCSE's campaign for Giving Tuesday
https://ncse.com/blog/2017/11/ncse-launches-giving-tuesday-campaign-0018647 

For NCSE's blog, visit:
http://ncse.com/blog 

Thanks for reading. And don't forget to visit NCSE's website --
http://ncse.com -- where you can always find the latest news on 
evolution and climate education and threats to them.

--
Sincerely,

Glenn Branch
Deputy Director
National Center for Science Education, Inc.
1904 Franklin Street, Suite 600
Oakland CA 94612-2922
510-601-7203
fax 510-788-7971
branch@ncse.com 
http://ncse.com 

Check out NCSE's blog:
http://ncse.com/blog 

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http://reports.ncse.com 

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