Understanding the Next Generation Science Standards.

The Next Generation Science Standards should provide K-12 teachers the guidance necessary to communicate and educate the youth of our nation.  From my perspective, a key component related to the standards and learning science is building relevance to the personal lives of children, youth and communities.  Since agriculture and agronomy plays a central role in the lives of all of us, we must build strategies to integrate relevant agricultural and agronomy model organisms and systems for the teaching science. Hence, the goal of this talk will be to describe the Next Generation of Science Standards, how they were developed (from a local to a national perspective), and how agronomists can help classroom teachers incorporate agriculture and agronomy into science classrooms.