Back in the Game: How BSCS Biology is Changing the Way Students Learn Science
At a Glance
District: Leander Independent School District
Recognition: Widely recognized at the national, state, and local levels for outstanding academic achievement and standout extracurricular programs.
Location: Leander, Texas, serving parts of the greater Austin area
Size:
- 48 K-12 schools serving over 42,000 students
- 34 high school biology teachers
- 3,400 high school biology students across 8 high schools
Solutions: District-wide adoption of BSCS Biology: Understanding for Life
Results:
- Students engaged from day one, taking risks and building knowledge together across all performance levels
- Growth in confidence for all students, including emerging multilingual learners
- Leander ISD outperformed state averages on 2025 Biology STAAR by up to 18%
The Challenges
-
Traditional curriculum emphasized memorization and “correct” answers over real-world application -
Teachers lacked resources for student-driven inquiry
-
Post-COVID classroom culture was difficult to rebuild
The Solutions
-
District-wide adoption of BSCS Biology: Understanding for Life -
35 hours of Curriculum-Based Professional Learning (CBPL) led by BSCS
-
Anchored Inquiry Learning instructional model
The Results
-
Students engaged from day one, taking risks and building knowledge together -
Growth in confidence for all students, including emerging multilingual learners
-
Outperformed state averages on 2025 Biology STAAR by up to 18%
Challenges
- Traditional curriculum centered on memorizing isolated facts and providing “correct” answers, leaving little room for real-world application or the kind of scientific thinking that makes learning meaningful.
- Teachers were filling gaps without external resources. With a program that was built in-house, teachers spent extra time developing their own labs and lessons.
- Adjustments were needed to implement the NGSS-based BSCS curriculum. Existing materials were aligned to Texas content standards (TEKS), but not designed from the ground up to support the new three-dimensional, phenomenon-driven teaching and learning the new TEKS called for.
- Teachers were in need of curriculum-based professional learning to support student-driven inquiry.
- Post-COVID, collaborative classroom culture was difficult to rebuild. The student-centered learning environment that makes science come alive felt increasingly out of reach for both teachers and students.
Justyne Biddle has been teaching life science at Leander ISD for 28 years. Throughout her career, she’s navigated curriculum changes and new state standards. But lately, something felt different.
“I’ve always been good at interacting with kids, laughing and storytelling. But since COVID, getting them to buy in and laugh has been a challenge.” Justyne recalls. “I thought, maybe I’m done.”
She’s not alone. Science teachers across the country are navigating how to engage their students in meaningful ways while implementing robust standards and preparing for standardized testing. For Justyne, the collaborative student-centered classroom culture that had characterized Justyne’s teaching for nearly three decades felt increasingly difficult to establish.
Leander’s existing science curriculum was rich in information but offered few avenues for students to apply thinking to real-world scenarios. This was particularly true for multilingual learners, who benefit most when provided with more interactive, contextualized ways to join the conversation. Although Leander’s educators were ready to embrace a more investigative and social style of learning, the available resources and professional development hadn’t yet caught up to that vision.
A New Approach to Biology
Leander ISD adopted BSCS Biology: Understanding for Life, a comprehensive biology curriculum designed for the Framework for K12 Science Education and Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Unlike materials that have been aligned post creation, BSCS Biology was designed from the ground up, built around three-dimensional learning and phenomenon-driven instruction, reflecting decades of research in science teaching and learning. The curriculum engages high school students in problem-solving, critical-thinking and prepares them for life in our complex, interconnected world.
The curriculum includes four units, each centered around societal challenges important to students, their families, and communities. The program introduces BSCS’s Anchored Inquiry Learning instructional model which focuses on collaborative learning through investigations, providing students increased accountability for self-learning and group work. Students build models, have small group discussions, ask questions, analyze real data, and discover the answer to the “why do I need to know this?” question without having to ask.
Unit 2 covers hereditary-genetic disease and asks students Why are some people at higher risk for heart disease than other people? Anna Wydeven, Senior Secondary Science Curriculum Coordinator at Leander ISD, describes a classroom alive with discussion.
“In the classroom, I frequently see students waving their hands, eager to contribute. During the heart disease unit, I saw kids in peer-led groups discussing three levels of health risk. In one group, several boys waited for their student leader to call on them so they could share their ideas. One student in particular took the lesson to heart, linking the health risks to his own family. He used new science words confidently to talk about this serious topic in a safe environment. The level of conversation was remarkably high—it’s amazing to see how much students can do when a curriculum is truly designed to engage teenage minds.”
Justyne adds that this unit becomes real and personal for her students, especially those with family members who have experienced heart attacks, deepening their understanding about genetics and environmental factors.
Professional Learning Makes the Difference
BSCS Biology: Understanding for Life is challenging because it is a new type of program, designed to give students a sense of agency to engage in, figure out, and apply science in meaningful ways beyond the classroom. This requires a non-traditional teaching approach.
Justyne describes the move toward formal storylines as a significant shift in her professional practice. Having spent years crafting her own narratives in existing materials, she initially found it difficult to trust a process she hadn’t authored. “BSCS professional learning puts everything together. It’s been a hard transition. Different pieces I saw in isolation and hadn’t figured out how to meld it all together. Since I wasn’t writing the storyline, I didn’t know where we were going until we were done. Then it all made so much sense.”
Leander ISD supported teachers with 35 hours of CBPL. BSCS designed Leander’sprofessional learning program specifically for BSCS Biology: Understanding for Life instructional materials. This matters because even high-quality instructional materials designed for NGSS ask teachers to teach in ways most have not experienced. CBPL makes the shift to student-centered teaching and learning possible by developing an understanding of the Anchored Inquiry Learning instructional model and instructional materials. As teachers dive deeply into the program, their own pedagogical and content knowledge deepens. Teachers are ready to completely change what biology teaching and learning looks like in their classrooms. Justyne walked away feeling excited, confident, and prepared for the year ahead.
District leader, Anna Wydeven, agrees the difference professional learning made for her teachers in Leander was significant. “I’m so glad we used our funding to purchase PL to support the curriculum. The curriculum is powerful, but teachers, my team, and I really needed the CBPL in order to understand deeply how to implement it the way it is meant to be implemented, and to make the program sustainable in the long term. Those two things together are what make the program so powerful.”
Transformation in Action
Students engaged from the first day of implementation, with teachers observing students across all performance levels taking risks, sharing ideas, and building knowledge together.
District leaders reported growth not just in science knowledge, but in academic growth and confidence for all students including emerging multilingual learners.
Leander ISD students demonstrated strong performance on the 2025 Biology STAAR exam, outpacing state averages by as much as 18% across all achievement levels. Notably, the Texas Biology STAAR End of Course Exam results reflect not just test preparation but instructional transformation:
- 96% achieved Approaches Grade Level (vs. 91% statewide)
- 80% achieved Meets or Better Grade Level (vs. 62% statewide)
- 33% achieved Masters Grade Level (vs. 21% statewide)
| 2025 Biology STARR Results | Statewide | Leander ISD | Outperformance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Approaches Grade Level | 91% | 96% | +5% |
| Meets or Better Grade Level | 62% | 80% | +18% |
| Masters Grade Level | 21% | 33% | +12% |
From the first day of implementation, Justyne saw the difference. Students across all performance levels were taking risks, sharing ideas, and building knowledge together. For emerging multilingual learners, the specifically integrated supports made a crucial difference. These students produced outstanding written work and participated fully in investigations.
Justyne reflects on the classroom transformation, “It’s also made the kids connect with each other again. There’s always been the class where no one ever talks. When I’d ask why, they’d say, ‘I don’t want to be wrong.’ Now, it’s not about giving them the answers, it’s about sharing what they’re thinking. And then saying, ‘Great thought, let’s build on that.’ Very few kids want to hide now. They’re making friends with each other and getting outside of their networks.”
Anna Wydeven shares similar observations, “We’re seeing growth not just in science knowledge, but in confidence for all student groups, including emerging multilingual learners.”
Parents noticed too. “Parents are even thanking me for challenging their kids,” Justyne shares. “They know real life is full of complex problems, and this program is preparing them for it.”
For Justyne personally, the impact was profound. “This program got me back in the game,” Justyne says. “It’s so relevant to kids’ lives. My students are constantly making connections between what they see in the world and what we’re learning in class. Kids were not trying to get answers on their cell phones. They weren’t getting on their laptops. They weren’t doing any of that. They were talking to each other. They were talking to me. I thought, “this feels good.”
Looking Forward
For Justyne, BSCS Biology represented more than a curriculum change, it renewed her sense of purpose. The teacher who had questioned whether to continue teaching found herself energized by a program that equips students with abilities and inclinations to act on what they’ve learned well beyond high school biology class and into their future personal, professional, and civic lives.
“After 28 years of teaching, this program showed me what’s possible,” Justyne reflects. “BSCS Biology changed how my students learn and use science. That’s worth staying in the game for.”