The students, from the Academy of the Americas, a public school a few miles from downtown, are being asked to do the painstaking work of science, in an unlikely setting. It's part of a curriculum and professional-development program called BioKIDS, which seeks to build students' skill in complex scientific reasoning. The approach goes well beyond fostering students' knowledge of science facts and concepts, to place a heavy emphasis on the more difficult work of having them devise scientific arguments based on evidence. In Detroit, the the investment seems to be paying off. At the 22 city schools taking part in the program, science scores on the Michigan state exam, which have lagged below state averages, have risen. Students also have scored well on separate tests of their science-reasoning ability.