Beginning with the 1997 spring semester, the College of Science at Murray State University made a significant commitment to science education-a commitment that continues to this day. It was during that seminal semester that the SCIENCE 101 course was piloted.

Early on, the Murray College of Science recognized the manner in which National Science Education Standards (NSES) and the Kentucky Education Reform Act (KERA) were transforming science education. In 1996, the College created a course especially to prepare preservice teachers to meet the more challenging demands of the science classrooms of today and tomorrow. The result was SCIENCE 101, a proactive response to the needs of future teachers of science.

SCIENCE 101 is now institutionalized as a regular course offering at Murray. It has been approved by the Academic Council and will be included in the regularly-published catalog of undergraduate courses. It is now a required course for incoming freshmen elementary education majors.

How is it possible to organize a course such as SCIENCE 101 whose value was recognized so quickly that it was necessary to offer three sections the semester immediately following the pilot course?

Here are the key characteristics of SCIENCE 101, which influence both the design and the delivery of the course:

• Consistent with the NSES. The NSES provide both general guidance and specific suggestions related to the training of science teachers, the delivery of science instruction, the assessment of science instruction, and the scope and sequence of the science content for various age/grade ranges. Science is established as an active process in which the learner is a participant. A constructivist theme permeates the NSES. Alignment with the NSES is critical to course success.

• Inquiry-based science teaching is a fundamental tenet of the science educational reform movement. Few if any university courses are taught in this manner. Few university students have experienced a significant exposure to inquiry-based teaching during their upbringing. Therefore, today's preservice teachers have at best a poorly developed concept of the nature of inquiry-based teaching, and have rarely observed an effective role model, much less participated themselves in an inquiry-based science course.
  
  This can be addressed through a course in which the content is organized as a series of hands-on projects, with the opportunity for student input in the planning of the investigations. In such a course, students learn and utilize the science process skills firsthand. Group work is now the norm; students experience how to function effectively as members of investigative teams. The learners become active participants, and lectures become discussions integrated as a natural part of the activities. At the same time, the content level remains rigorous.
  
• Multidisciplinary. One of the fundamental aspects of the science educational reform movement is the integration of science with other subject areas and the establishment of connections to the several scientific disciplines. The traditional classroom delivered instruction in segregated dollops: mathematics, then social studies, followed by reading, and then science. Even within science teaching, physical science was kept separate from life science which, in turn, was isolated from earth and space science. Overlap was all but nonexistent. Today's science teacher is responsible for helping students not only to learn science but also to identify relationships among different areas of science and links to other subject areas. A course with a strong multidisciplinary approach is critical to the success of today's science teacher preparation. Connections to other subject areas and a rich mixture of biology, chemistry, geoscience, and physics are the necessary ingredients.
  
• Theme based. A fundamental strength of any multidisciplinary unit is that its goals are related to a common theme. The theme serves to unify the multiple facets of the course of study, and strongly suggests that these diverse perspectives create a unique and enriching learning experience. Today's science education revolves around the exploration of theme ideas. The SCIENCE 101 course was organized under the theme of Earth Systems. This provided the framework for the many inquiry-based multidisciplinary activities of the course, and provided a touchstone of relevance for the students throughout the experience.