Biology education in the United States has been influenced to the greatest degree (aside from the socio-political- cultural issues of the evolution-creation science debate) by the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS) than by another force or group. The BSCS was organized in 1959 at the University of Colorado. It is still as active as a curriculum force in science education today, with headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
The BSCS developed three approaches and separate curricula for the high school biology program. The BSCS developed two organizational structures that were used to give direction to the three approaches to biology. BSCS, according to William Mayer identified seven levels of organization as follows:
1. The molecular level2. The cellular level
3. The organ and tissue level
4. The organismic level
5. The population level
6. The community level
7. The world biome level
The three versions of BSCS that were developed were organized around three of the above levels, and according to Mayer, "in order not to prejudice prospective users for or against any one of the three approaches, there were no descriptive titles: rather, the three texts were designated by color." The versions and their "level of organization," are as follows:
BSCS Blue Version: (Molecular) Biological Sciences: Molecules to ManBSCS Yellow Version: (Cell) Biological Science: An Inquiry into Life
BSCS Green Version: (World biome) Biological Science: An Ecological Approach
BSCS materials were also organized around a set of unifying themes---"the characteristics and concepts that provide the most comprehensive and reliable knowledge of living things known to modern science." The unifying themes were identified as follows:
Hurd points out that the first five unifying themes were used to organize the content in each version, themes 8 and 9 refer to the internal structure of biology, and themes 6 and 7 refer to content and structure.
The three versions of BSCS (See the chart below) impacted high school biology enormously. Shymansky, Kyle, and Alport reported that there was more research data available on the BSCS programs than any other new curriculum project. BSCS programs compared very favorably against traditional biology courses. With the exception of physics, the new biology programs "showed the greatest gains across all criteria measured," (achievement, perceptions, process skills, analytic skills).
Biological
Science: An Inquiry into Life Biological
Science: Molecules to Man Biological
Science: An Ecological Approach • Unity: Life
from life, basic structure and functions, living chemistry,
the physiology and reproduction of cells, and the heredity
materials. • Diversity:
viruses, bacteria, important small organisms, molds, yeasts
and mushrooms, the trend toward complexity, the land turns
green, photosynthesis, stems and roots. • Continuity:
patterns of heredity, the chromosome theory of heredity,
Darwinian evolution, the mechanisms of evolution and the
cultural evolution of man. • Interaction:
a population out of balance, a perspective of time and life:
molecules to man. • Biology, the
Interaction of Facts and Ideas: science as inquiry, the
variety of living things, conflicting views on the means of
evolution, the origin of living things. • Evolution of
Life Processes: forerunners of life, chemical energy for
life, light as energy for life, and life with
oxygen. • The Evolution
of the Cell: master molecules, the biological code, the cell
theory. • Multicellular
Organisms: New Individuals: multicellular organism,
reproduction, and development. • Multicellular
Organisms: Genetic Continuity: patterns of heredity, genes
and chromosomes, the origin of species. • Multicellular
Organisms: Energy Utilization: transport, respiratory,
digestive and excretory systems. • Multicellular
Organisms: Unifying Systems: regulatory, nervous, skeletal
and muscular systems, the organism and behavior. • Higher Levels
of Organization: human species, populations, societies and
communities. • The World of
Life: The web of life, individuals and populations,
communities and ecosystems. • Diversity
Among Living Things: Animals, plants, protists. • Patterns in
the Biosphere: Patterns of life in the microscopic world, on
land, in the water, in the past. • Within the
Individual Organism: The cell, bioenergetics, the
functioning cell, the functioning animal,
behavior. • Continuity of
the Biosphere: reproduction, heredity, evolution. •Man and the
Biosphere: The human animal, man in the web of
life.