Glenn Branch is the deputy director of the National Center for Science Education, a nonprofit organization that promotes and defends accurate and effective science education. 

As Iowa continues the process of reviewing and revising its state science standards—which establish the goals for what knowledge and skills students in the state’s public schools are expected to attain—a remark from a famous transient Iowan comes to mind. Offering advice for aspiring writers, Mark Twain emphasized that “the difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter,” adding, “’tis the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning.”

As the Cedar Rapids Gazette previously reported, after the committee of 37 Iowa educators and scientists charged with revising the standards completed its work, the Iowa Department of Education took it upon itself to scrub phrases like “evolution” and “climate change” and a reference to the 4.6-billion-year age of the earth from the draft that was then presented to the public. There was no acknowledgement of the department’s intervention until members of the committee protested.