Science for All Children A Guide to Improving Elementary Science Education in Your School District (1997) / Chapter Skim
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1. The Value of Science Education
1. The Value of Science Education
Pages 7-20
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From page 7... ...
and Why do ships float? All those close to children hope that school will continue to spark children's natural love of learning.
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From page 8... ...
Accorcling to the National ScienceEducation Stanclards, inquiry involves "making observations; posing questions; examining books and other sources of information to see what is aIreacly known; planning investigations; reviewing what is already known in light of experimental evidence; using tools to gather, analyze, and interpret data; proposing answers, explanations, and predictions; and communicating results." These activities are deeply rooted in both the scientific tradition and educational theory. Nonetheless, inquiry represents a new approach to science education to many school districts and teachers.
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From page 9... ...
This lifts water from the well into a water tank for the animals." She reads on about windmills operating machines to supply electric power. Then come other examples of "energy from moving air." Several children are moving restlessly, playing with pencils and whispering.
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From page 10... ...
This is a drastic change from the way things were a few generations ago, when more children lived on farms and had numerous opportunities to experience firsthand many aspects of science, such as helping to plant crops and discovering the importance of rains to the harvest. Children to(lay may see such things on television or explore these ideas by playing games on computer screens, but they seldom experience them directly.
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From page 11... ...
It would be an error to blame schools for our growing lack of physical contact with the physical world, but an even bigger error not to do something about it. We are all in this bind together; it is the-result of a maturing technological world where production is taken farther and farther away from the consumer.
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From page 12... ...
The students begin discussing the problem.Through the active exchange of ideas, they conclude that a copper wire would produce a brighter light than a resistance wire or a bulb. In earlier investigations, they found that both resistance wire and a bulb conducted electricity, but that neither allowed the bulb to burn as brightly as the copper wire did.Therefore, it seems likely that either a resistance wire or a bulb is in the box.
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From page 13... ...
<~ ~/5~ :? ( ~7 In\ Testing copper wire with the circuit tester 'it C~_ Testing the mystery box with the circuit tester The students begin working.They notice that the bulb in the circuit tester shines more brightly than the one in the mystery box when copper wire is connected in the tester.
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From page 14... ...
In this lesson, students continue their study of electric circuits by teaming up in pairs en cl working with mystery boxesplain white boxes with two terminals on top that contain an unknown electrical crevice. The stuclents' challenge is to finct out, through experimentation en cl reasoning, what electrical crevice, if any, is connected to the terminals inside the box.
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From page 15... ...
, also shares this view: "For students in the early grades, the emphasis should overwhelmingly be on gaining experience with natural and social phenomena.... By gaining lots of experience doing science, becoming more sophisticated in conducting investigations, en cl by explaining their finclings, students will accumulate a set of concrete experiences on which they can draw to reflect on the process."6 In addition, the National Science Education Standards establishes active learning as one of the underlying principles of science education.
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From page 16... ...
4. The inquiry-centered science classroom accommodates different learning styles.
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From page 17... ...
Lauren Resnick states that multiple-choice tests "can measure the accumulation of knowledge and can be used to examine specific components of reasoning or thinking. However, they are ill suited to assessing the kiwis of integrated thinking we call 'higher order."'~° To measure the gains made during science class, educators are beginning to recognize that alternative assessments are needed.
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From page 18... ...
Building a Foundation for Change ful in middle school and high school science classes than were students taught in more traditional ways, such as by reading a textbook. In addition, students who had experienced inquiry-centered science were more adept at problem solving than those who participated in traditional programs.
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From page 19... ...
Although this hypothesis has not yet been tested on a large scale, there is evidence that inquiry will result in these outcomes for one key reason: It supports the way children naturally learn. Chapter 2 explores further the relationship between inquiry and the way children learn by focusing on the work of cognitive scientists.
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From page 20... ...
New York: Oxford University Press. American Association for the Advancement of Science.
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