Pennsylvania is implementing new standards for science curriculum and the Warren County School District will begin phasing them in beginning this school year.

The science, technology & engineering, environmental literacy & sustainability (STEELS) standards were adopted in January 2022 and set to go into effect in July 2025 for the 2025-26 school year. The standards will impact curriculum for student in grades kindergarten through 12.

In anticipation of this, the WCSD will begin utilizing a mix of current science education standards and the STEELS standards, with STEELS set to fully take over in 2025-26.

“Pennsylvania always has its own spin on things,” WCSD Director of Curriculum Instruction & Assessment Eric Mineweaser said. “It’s literally redesigning your entire science curriculum. It’s an entirely different way of teaching science.”

The district is starting with grades 6 through 8, which will begin utilizing STEELS standards this year.

“We have time, but in relation to those standards, our middle level, we’re ready to go,” Mineweaser said. “So we’re ahead of the game.”

The standards are a shift from traditional fact memorization, and include an increased emphasis on environmental literacy and sustainability through introduction of a new domain focused on those areas.

“(The standards) prioritize a shift away from memorization of facts to having students productively participate in scientific discourse and practices, involve students in sustained investigation to support deeper understanding, and recognize that even young children are capable of more sophisticated scientific reasoning than originally thought,” according to information from the Pennsylvania Department of Education. “The new standards will help create the conditions for all students to be scientifically, technologically, environmentally, and engineering literacy, both to support Pennsylvania’s economic vitality and its civic strength.”