Coordinated Thematic Science in the Classroom: A View from Pilot Teachers

The purpose of this paper is threefold. First, we set out to describe a context for understanding events that fuel the need to reform secondary science education in Texas. Next, we present the results of a survey of the knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes of a group of central Texas science teachers related to implementing Coordinated Thematic Science (CTS) instruction, who were surveyed after field testing preliminary CTS instructional materials. Last, we argue that caution must be exercised in the design of inservice programs to prepare life science teachers in Texas to teach a coordinated thematic Science I course to rising Grade 7 students by the target date of Fall, 1994.