I am frequently asked, “What should the prerequisite for ________ be?” You can fill in the
blank with any science you want, but normally it is chemistry or physics. Usually, the person
asking the question is looking for a math prerequisite, not science. My response to them is . . .
“The desire to learn.”
Here’s my rationale for that response. The normal sequence of science courses in high school is
biology, chemistry, physics. You do not need any biology to understand chemistry and you do
not need any chemistry to understand physics. The same could be said of an earth science,
biology, chemistry sequence. Therefore, a science prerequisite will not be a good predictor of
success in the next course.
But that point is moot because the question is usually referring to a math prerequisite. Students
are not allowed to use calculators on any of the science CSTs. There will never be any
geometry, trigonometry, quadratic equations, or even square roots on a CST science test. But
I’m a scientist and I need evidence. So a few years ago, I analyzed the science framework
standard by standard and determined that it does not take math any higher than basic algebra to
teach standards-based science in California. People countered, “Have you seen the CST test? It
is very math based!”
So recently, I analyzed each and every one of the high school Released Test Questions for
biology, chemistry, physics, earth science, and 10th grade life science tests. My results? It does
not take math any higher than basic algebra to teach standards-based science in California!!
I used a 0-5 scale where:
0 = No math
1 = Basic arithmetic
2 = Simple algebra
3 = Advanced algebra (2 equations, multi-step, quadratic)
4 = Trigonometry
5 = Calculus
Here are the results:
Subject
Biology
Chemistry
Physics
Earth
th
10 Grade
Mean
0.08
0.5
0.9
0.03
0.1
Median
0
0
0
0
0
Mode
0
0
0
0
0
Range
0-1
0-3
0-3
0-1
0-1
Every single subject had an average math level less than basic arithmetic, a median of no math, a
mode of no math, and not one question ranked higher than advanced algebra. None of the
questions required any trigonometry or calculus. For the median to be 0, that means that more
than half of the questions require no math at all.
Below are the results of the chemistry analysis.
000000000000010000000000000020021000012200030000000001000000001222122333
Surprised? How can this be explained?
Science teachers are famous for over-teaching their subjects. We complain about too many
standards, too little time, and how little math background our students come to us with and then
we teach the class to a far higher math standard than required of us.
I would argue that reading ability would be a far better predictor of success than math ability. (I
don’t condone the use of reading scores as a prerequisite for science classes, I was just making a
point.)
So, if I had a gun to my head and had to answer what the math prerequisite for each science
should be, I would say:
Biology- None
Chemistry- Algebra 1
Physics- Algebra 1
Earth- None
To see the spreadsheets where I copied and pasted each and every RTQ question and analyzed
the math and gave a rationale for my rating, go to http://scienceinquirer.wikispaces.com/math.