Problems with German Science Education

The main problems of science (especiallyphysics) teaching in Germany are students' lack ofinterest and motivation in the subject, their poorunderstanding of scientific concepts, ideas, methods,and results, and their lack of comprehension of thesocial, political, and epistemological role ofscience. These circumstances result in a growing`scientific illiteracy' of the population and adecline in democratic quality concerning decisionmaking processes about scientific and technologicalprojects. One means of improving this situation liesin the use of history and philosophy of science inscience teaching. School science curricula undtextbooks neglect almost completely the importance ofhistory and philosophy of science. In this paper, themain empirical results concerning motivation andknowledge are given. Some examples from sciencecurricula and textbooks are presented, and some of thefew reform projects in Germany are listed. As aconsequence a compensatory program is proposed inorder to create the prerequisites for raising scienceeducation in Germany to an international standard.