Requiring Peer Reviewed Science in the Classroom: New Legislation in Massachusetts
Abby Hafer
As a science teacher at Curry College in Massachusetts, Abby Hafer is a staunch advocate of teaching peer-reviewed, scientifically accurate content in her college classes. In an effort to protect public school science education in the state, Hafer recently worked with legislator Kenneth Gordon to draft a bill that adds language to existing curriculum standards that seeks to limit science instruction in Massachusetts to age-appropriate, peer-reviewed scientific fact. In addition to combating academic freedom legislation recently passed in Tennessee (2012) and Louisiana (2008), Hafer also hopes this bill will provide model legislation that protects science education, science teachers and students of science across the nation. Hafer joins Lab Out Loud this week to discuss the bill and its potential impact, while describing how she worked with her legislator to impact science education through politics.
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Links:
- Bill H.471: An Act relative to science curriculum standards
- Bedford resident stands up for science, The Bedford Minuteman
Books and Videos from Abby Hafer:
- The Not-So-Intelligent Designer: Why Evolution Explains the Human Body and Intelligent Design Does Not :
https://www.amazon.com/Not-So-Intelligent-Designer- Evolution-Explains- Intelligent/dp/1620329417/ref= sr_1_1?keywords=abby+hafer& qid=1567103633&s=books&sr=1-1 - The Men Who Fought to Have Evolution Accepted, Their Times, and How the Battle Continues (co-written with David Orenstein Darwin’s Apostles). Not yet available, but will be published on November 24, 2019, exactly 160 years after Origin of Species was published: https://
humanistpress.com/darwins- apostles - “UnIntelligent Design”: https://www.youtube.
com/watch?v=oWk3GK9iY5g - “Animals that Shouldn’t Exist, According to Intelligent Design”: https://www.youtube.
com/watch?v=f31AoXFAWls - “Everything You Know About Sex is Wrong: Part 1—The Gender Binary”: https://www.youtube.
com/watch?v=ikjTsxKdzN0
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