Why Waldorf Students Are Excited About Science
Recent National Assessment of Educational Progress results show a troubling trend: 8th grade science scores have dropped four points since 2019, with students doing less hands-on scientific learning than ever before. The percentage of students engaging in experiments and scientific inquiry dropped from 17% to just 14%, while student interest in science plummeted from 38% to 28%.
At the same time, schools have increasingly relied on digital learning tools over physical experiments and hands-on discovery—an approach that’s clearly not working.
Waldorf schools take a different path. Our students are genuinely excited about science because they experience it the way real scientists do: through hands-on experimentation, project-based learning, and real-world discovery. At Mountain Laurel, students are not passively consuming information from screens; they’re conducting chemistry experiments, building physics models, and observing nature firsthand.
This approach encourages our students to think like scientists, developing deep curiosity about the world around them. They form hypotheses, test ideas, and understand how their discoveries apply to real life. The result? An exciting journey of discovery that prepares students for a lifetime of curiosity and innovation.
For more information, read the article: What’s Behind the Drop in Students’ Science Scores on NAEP? in Education Week.
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