Jonathan - I wonder how familiar you are with what the Open
University is offering in science education; i have no experience of
school teaching (or the national curriculum) and obviously the OU is
higher education, but may be achieving some of the things you
advocate. The OU offers at least one course (S280, Science Matters)
about scientific issues in society (it requires some basic scientific
knowledge and understanding), as well as many courses about
"doing" science. I have taught the level one course for many years
and the latest rewrite, S103, was presented for the first time in
1998. It's a superb course - teaching scientific skills as well as
concepts/knowledge, via text, experiment, videos, CD-ROMs and
tutorials.
One of the pleasures of teaching it is seeing students' preconceived
ideas about what science is disappear - one student commented
recently that he had always thought science was about "learning
facts" and he was pleasantly surprised to find that it's
intellectually rigorous, & often about uncertainty and
interpretation. I was delighted that the course material includes a
brief, but very clearly explained piece about Popper, and the
experiments are designed on the basis of making osevations,
hypothesising and testing hypotheses, rather than the old recipe
style that some of us have encountered in the past.
Of course, we have to persuade people to register for the course
first, and there we lose out to the Arts and Social Science
faculties!
Jonathan Osborne wrote:
- the needs of the
> general public for a broad understanding of the principle ideas to be found
> in science, what it is to do science and the social practices of scientists
> (in my view, a much greateer emphasis on science studies). The national
curriculum has actually made it worse by > concentrating on basic
concepts and separating science from technology. If
> you are a believer in some kind of science, technology and society
> education, then if the curriculum does not make the step from science to
> technology, it definitely won't make the bigger step from science to
> society. Hence the virtual disappearance of consideration of such issues
Dr MJ Pearson
Department of Chemical Pathology & Immunology
Old Medical School
Leeds General Infirmary (Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust)
LEEDS LS1 3EX
Tel 0113 392 3945
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