Eleven parents in the small town of Dover, just south of here, are suing their school board for introducing intelligent design in the ninth-grade biology curriculum.

The BSCS also expanded its work beyond standard tenth-grade biology curriculum to produce educational materials for exceptional students, for teachers, and for all educational levels, from kindergarten to adult.

They emphasized that "Scientists have firmly established evolution as an important natural process" and that "The selection of topics covered in a biology curriculum should accurately reflect the principles of biological science.

Each year, at least a half-dozen states seem to introduce legislation intended to undermine science education standards by allowing or requiring nonscientific ideas to be taught alongside a standard biology curriculum.

Those core competencies will include a greater emphasis on molecular genetics within the biology curriculum and will include biochemistry.

The trial laid bare the fighting over the biology curriculum that went on between Dover's board and science teachers for more than two years.

Several years ago, the Kentucky state school board became a national laughingstock for replacing the term "evolution" in its biology curriculum with "change over time."

Dover received national attention in 2004-05, after the Dover Area School District voted to include the following statement about intelligent design in the biology curriculum of its schools:

Maria Shreiber, a 16-year-old middle school student, filed the suit after declaring her school's biology curriculum violated her rights as a religious believer.

The state superintendent of schools says she will reinstate the word "evolution" in the proposed biology curriculum for the state's schools.