Eileen Parsons, professor of science education, has been appointed to serve on an expert committee for the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine to make recommendations regarding the teaching and learning of science.
Parsons will serve on a committee for the Academies’ Board of Science Education that will write a report examining research on a new set of science education standards and provide ideas for the teaching and learning of science incorporating the new standards.
The National Academies released in 2011 the Next Generation Science Standards, a framework for K-12 science education that proposed new approaches for teaching science in ways that capture students’ interest and better provides them with foundational science knowledge.
The Board of Science Education committee will review research into application of the new standards, convene workshops to elicit results of research that is underway and write a report about its findings. The report, which will be published next year by the National Academies Press, will provide evidence-based ideas for teaching and learning that incorporate the new vision of science education.
Parsons is a member of the Board of Directors of the National Association for Research in Science Teaching, the premier international and national organization in science education research. NARST works to promote research in science education and the communication of knowledge generated by that research, with the goal of helping all learners achieve science literacy.
Parsons has served as a fellow for the American Association for the Advancement of Science, spending a year working at the National Science Foundation, assisting the agency in addressing presidential and Congressional mandates in science, technology, engineering and mathematics education.
Before coming to Carolina, Parsons taught physical science, chemistry and math in North Carolina public schools and worked as an assistant professor at Lenoir-Rhyne College and N.C. State University. Parsons received her B.S. from Carolina in science teaching, and an M.S. and her Ph.D. in science education from Cornell University.