LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After studying this chapter, you should be able to:
• discuss the diverse roles of science and science education in our society
• identify contemporary issues for science education
• reflect on the place of science within the wider curriculum.
Introduction
While ostensibly examining contemporary issues in teaching and learning science, in many ways this chapter is really concerned with why we as a society require all of our children to spend so much of their early lives learning about science at school. The reasons are many and complex, and this chapter does not aim to provide a neat and satisfactory answer, but it will provide you with a greater level of insight into the ‘why’ of science education before the book departs more earnestly into matters of ‘how’.
In search of this insight, the chapter will begin with a brief historical examination of science education and the public understanding of science. This will highlight that science education is, and always has been, about more than just teaching children some ‘stuff about science’. There is a well-known principle developed in modern architecture and industrial design that ‘form follows function’. This principle is also quite apt for describing changing approaches to the design of science education as it is evident that the form in science education, or teaching and learning practices, has indeed followed changes in the function, or goals and purposes, set for it by society.
OPENING VIGNETTE
A common question heard in many classrooms goes something like, ‘When will I use this when I grow up?’ Given the time and effort we expect children to put into their education, it is the sort of question that deserves an answer with greater meaning than it typically receives, such as, ‘I don't know, but it will be on the next test!’
Finding reasons to study science is easy – science is increasingly important in our rapidly changing world, meaning that many jobs and many decisions we need to make as a society require an understanding of science; science enables us to understand, manage and shape our natural and made environments, or simply to widen our sense of wonder and curiosity about them; scientific ways of working provide a powerful way to solve problems from the personal to the global level; the list could go on.
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