The general strategy of Project 2061 was to forge a consensus on learning goals as the basis for all other changes to the system of science education. Up front, the designers of Project 2061 announced that it would require at least 25 years to achieve its goals. The fact that the project has survived its tenth year is a tribute to the funding agencies and their confidence in the 2061 concept and its designers. The original supporters--the Carnegie Corporation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation--continue to support Project 2061.

From the start, Project 2061 emphasized the importance of science as one of the great human activities, much like the visual arts, literature, and music. The basic premise of the project was that the excitement in science should be made available to all students if they are to become science literate. The project's first major report, Science for All Americans, traced the lack of science literacy to problems derived from administrative and curricular issues like the crushing workloads of teachers; antiquated support systems; poor training; textbooks and methods of instruction that impede inquiry, critical thought, and recognition of connections among ideas; and an overstuffed curriculum that offered some topics in needless detail while overlooking ideas and skills critical to science literacy.

The chief intent of Science for All Americans, was to provide a fresh, critical look at what science was most worth learning. Put another way, the question was: What should all high school graduates know and be able to do in science, mathematics, and technology? Science for All Americans established the ground rules for what has become to be known as systematic reform. Thus, reform must be comprehensive in the sense that it involves all children, all grades, and all subjects; and, it must be long term. The approach to curriculum development was ambitious. Curriculum reform should be shaped by a vision of the lasting knowledge and skills students need to acquire by the time they become adults. Moreover, the common core of learning in science, mathematics, and technology should center on science literacy. A common set of learning goals did not imply a uniform curriculum, funding methods, or materials. But above all, schools should not try to teach more, but less. In other words, the new curriculum to be developed was not the accretion of additional layers of material on top of the existing structure; that's why the designers suggested it might take a quarter of a century to achieve its goals. Science for All Americans construed the notion of science literacy broadly, by focusing on interconnected understanding in the natural and social sciences, mathematics, and technology.

After the publication of Science for All Americans, Project 2061 turned its attention to developing tools to help redesign curricula around the science literacy goals and to helping teachers think through the implications for other aspects of the education system. To illustrate the flexibility of this approach, Project 2061 established school district teams in six diverse geographical areas--three rural school districts in Georgia; the school districts in Philadelphia, San Antonio, San Diego, and San Francisco; and a small suburban school district near Madison, Wisconsin. Planning for 13 years of schooling in science, mathematics, and technology involved teams of teachers in each ISD. Each team included five elementary teachers, five middle school teachers, ten high school teachers, one principal from each level, and two curricula specialists. The teachers were drawn from a wide range of disciplines, including the life and physical sciences, social sciences, mathematics, technology, and even the humanities. Initially, the teams set out to design curriculum models that the school districts involved could use to plan curricula responsive to local needs, but still focused on the science literacy goals for all. Working backward from these adult literacy goals, the teams were able to identify a series of learning goals for younger students. Working to gather them created a common set of learning goals for various levels, which were the focus for the second major publication of Project 2061, Benchmarks for Science Literacy. Benchmarks is a tool to be used in designing curriculum that makes local sense for meeting the goals for science literacy that are recommended in Science for All Americans. Benchmarks specifies thresholds rather than averages or advanced performance.

In the course of the last 10 years, Project 2061 has produced a wide spectrum of resources describing most of the developments that occurred during the evaluation of the project. These are, perhaps, its most important legacy. We can only hope that the project will be sustained for at least another 15 years, as conceived by its designers.

The 10-year report of Project 2061, which includes a useful set of references, is available from AAAS, 1333 H St., N.W., Washington, DC 20005.