Primary science education: Views from three Australian States

This paper reports an empirical study of science education in Australian primary schools. The data show that, while funding is seen as a major determinant of what is taught and how it is taught, teacher-confidence and teacher-knowledge are also important variables. Teachers are most confident with topics drawn from the biological sciences, particularly things to do with plants. With this exception there is no shared body of science education knowledge that could be used to develop a curriculum for science education. There was evidence that most teachers see a need for a hands-on approach to primary science education involving the use of concrete materials. A substantial proportion of teachers agree that some of the problems would be alleviated by having a set course together with simple, prepared kits containing sample learning experiences. Any such materials must make provision for individual teachers to capitalise on critical teaching incidents as they arise and must not undermine the professional pride that teachers have in their work. Specializations: science education, school effectiveness, teacher education Specializations: science education, teacher education in science     

Native science,intercultural education and place‐conscious education: an Ecuadorian example

This paper explores ways to bring together local and global knowledge systems in the context of education. It first discusses the concepts of native science and of intercultural education, key ideas in Ecuadorian indigenous education today. Both of these concepts seek to unite the local and the global in new ways. It explores the views of Ecuadorian indigenous educators and leaders around issues of education and science. The primary need voiced by these individuals is that of defending their communities against various kinds of encroachment, economic as well as cultural, and the enterprise of education is viewed within this reality. Finally, the paper discusses the paradigm of place‐conscious education, which the author argues is a unifying conceptual framework that speaks to the concerns voiced by these educators as well as those of educators elsewhere.     

Emerging issues concerning the future directions of Australian senior science education: The Queensland experience

Australia's changing political, social and economic agendas have triggered a critical analysis of school curriculum. Part of this consideration has been concern over the future of science education within the context of senior schooling. Following the completion of the Senior Science Future Directions Project commissioned by the Queensland Board of Senior Secondary School Studies, fifteen issues were identified. These issues, grouped by the needs of the science disciplines, society and the individual student, are discussed with the view of understanding the future design of senior science syllabuses. Specializations: biology teacher education, science curriculum development. Specializations: professional development, curriculum design and evaluation. Specializations: professional development, science teaching.     

Northeast wisconsin science forum,an example of cooperative effort in upgrading science education

Conclusions In view of growing national concern over the decline in scientific literacy among students and the need to attract more students to science and engineering, it is incumbent upon college and precollege science faculties to work together to find ways to help solve these problems. To this end, college and precollege science teachers and administrators established the NEW Science Forum and its dinner-and-lecture series and Science Teacher Day field trips. These activities stimulate teacher interest in science, upgrade scientific understanding, and provide new insights and information for classroom use. In addition, the Forum is an opportunity for discussion among techers and between teachers and university science faculty members. The continued high level of participation by teachers and professors during the seven years since the founding of the NEW Science Forum attests to its value to area educators. Our experience prompts us to encourage our colleagues at other colleges and universities to explore the feasibility of establishing a similar program in their regions. The rewards of strengthening ties with area school science teachers far outweigh lost time from research and the trepidation of operating with a zero budget.     

Science and its professionals: Views of Australian scientists on science education

Conclusions This study raises a great number of questions, many of which would be valuable for science curricula to reflect upon. Firstly, it would seem that the practising professionals do not believe methodology is easily taught, at least not without a strong factual knowledge base. Secondly, science courses have had little effect on carrer choice, with the possible slight exception of physical scientists working in the public sector. Thirdly, scientists would give strong support to the idea of teaching students to use ‘scientific attitudes’ in their everyday life. And fourthly, the social implications of science are felt to be deserving of close attention in schools-but perhaps not within the science classroom. What clearly remains to be done is the difficult and time-consuming work to follow up these hints. What do the scientists see asthe scientific attitudes? What facts, etc., should form the basis of the science curricula? How should the social implications of science be discussed, and what responses are appropriate to them? To answer these questions will take a national study of great scope and effort, yet it would seem to be an essential part of the process of determinng science education programmes of purpose and value.     

Globalisation and science education: Rethinking science education reforms

Like Lemke (J Res Sci Teach 38:296–316, 2001), I believe that science education has not looked enough at the impact of the changing theoretical and global landscape by which it is produced and shaped. Lemke makes a sound argument for science education to look beyond its own discourses toward those like cultural studies and politics, and to which I would add globalisation theory and relevant educational studies. Hence, in this study I draw together a range of investigations to argue that globalisation is indeed implicated in the discourses of science education, even if it remains underacknowledged and undertheorized. Establishing this relationship is important because it provides different frames of reference from which to investigate many of science education's current concerns, including those new forces that now have a direct impact on science classrooms. For example, one important question to investigate is the degree to which current science education improvement discourses are the consequences of quality research into science teaching and learning, or represent national and local responses to global economic restructuring and the imperatives of the supranational institutions that are largely beyond the control of science education. Developing globalisation as a theoretical construct to help formulate new questions and methods to examine these questions can provide science education with opportunities to expand the conceptual and analytical frameworks of much of its present and future scholarship. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

台湾中小学的理科教育

本对台湾中小学教育的现状、理科课程、理科教学、师资等情况作了概括性介绍，也表达了作的基本认识。     

知识教育：现象学教育学的检视

现象学教育学摒弃先在的理论成见和抽象的形而上学，倾注于个体真实的生活世界，力图发现教育的“意义”之所在。这样的探究理路，为我们认识知识教育提供了一种新的可能，为我们在知识教育实践中摆脱无休止的理论吵闹和纷争，重新找回生命的本真提供了新思路。在现象学教育学的视野中，不仅知识教育的生活面貌得以恢复，而且知识教育的根本使命也得以再认和申明。     

Globalization and science education: The implications of science in the new economy

Science has seen considerable change in recent decades with the emergence of a new economic and sociopolitical contract between science, the nation, state, and private commercial interests. Generally regarded as having been precipitated by globalization, these changes in the sciences are beginning to be documented by a range of commentators. Clearly, science's changing forms hold profound implications for the development of science education. As there is little science education scholarship exploring the implications sciences' altering forms, this paper attempts to investigate the relationship at more depth. Detailing this relationship is important because it can help formulate new questions, and methods for their investigation, relevant to the work of science education in the newly global world. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 45: 617–633, 2008     

从环境科学看人文教育与科学教育的融合

很高兴参加这次人文教育与科学教育的融合高级研讨会.从环境保护科学研究的角度看,我认为在自然科学教育中,人文教育的重要意义怎么评价都不过分,其原因是:第一,一个好的科学家,一个好的工程师,必须首先是一个好人,必须首先是一个道德品质优秀,有为人民服务的奉献精神的高尚的人;第二,每一项科学和技术,都具很深厚的文化内涵;第三,科学技术将因为人文科学的融合而生动美丽.     

Models in science and in science education: an introduction

This collection of papers contributes to the tradition of model-related research in education, and it does so in both the fields of pedagogy and epistemology. Hopefully the papers will deepen understanding and move the research field forward. The ubiquity of models in the history and current practice of science is widely recognised. In the past half-century historians and philosophers of science have devoted considerable time to documenting and understanding the role of models in science and social science. A minority of studies have engaged with the central epistemic question of the truth-status of models, and of how models relate, or do not relate, to the real-world processes that they are putatively representing. In Education research there has been a rich vein of such research investigating the use of models as aids to memory, as ways of bridging between the experience and understanding of learners and the more abstract theories of science; and there has been a lot of research on the efficacy of children’s own experiences of model construction and testing. Attention to the epistemological side of model construction, functioning and testing is of special current importance because of the unprecedented importance being given to ‘Nature of Science’ objectives in science curricula around the world.     

The utopia of science education

In this forum I expand on the ideas I initially presented in ??Extending the purposes of science education: addressing violence within socio-economic disadvantaged communities?? by responding to the comments provided by Matthew Weinstein, Francis Broadway and Sheri Leafgren. Focusing on their notion of utopias and superheroes, I ask us to reconsider science as inevitably violent. Utopia is a concept that contributes to articulating our ideals, and serves to give us perspective on how our current reality differs from our goals. I suggest that by recognising alternative views of nature, science and ??superheroes?? we could see a science that is committed to the lives and struggles of students as well as the lives and struggles of other animals.     

The philosophical basis of observation in science and science education

Observation plays a fundamental role in scientific investigation. Scientific observation sometimes involves relatively simple activities requiring little preparation and unsophisticated interpretation. At other times, however, scientific observation is an extremely complex activity, indeed among the most challenging enterprises in which human beings engage. The science education field typically portrays only that segment of scientific observation at the simple end of this spectrum. In doing this, there is a risk that students will acquire a distorted image of scientific observation, and develop observational skills which are not at all adequate for the role which observation plays in science. An alternative account of observation in science is presented and its implications for science teaching are discussed.