The Iowa Board of Education voted unanimously to adopt the Next Generation Science Standards at its August 6, 2015, meeting. Iowa thus becomes the fifteenth state to adopt the NGSS, joining Arkansas (so far only for middle school), California, Delaware, Kansas, Kentucky, Illinois, Maryland, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and West Virginia, as well as the District of Columbia.
Earlier in 2015, a bill in the Iowa House of Representatives would have prevented Iowa from adopting the NGSS. As NCSE previously reported, the sponsor of House File 272 objected to the fact that the standards were not written in Iowa, but was also concerned that the standards "present evolution as scientific fact and shine a negative light on human impacts on climate change." The bill died in committee on March 6, 2015.
During public review of the standards, a small number of comments "negatively referenced biological evolution as a science standard" and urged the elimination of disciplinary core ideas about climate change, according (PDF) to the science standards review team. A petition signed by 307 people urging the retention of the climate science material was also received. No changes to the standards were made in response to these comments.