VISIONS OF CURRICULUM, COMMUNITY, AND SCIENCE

A bstract .  Although the natural sciences are dedicated to understanding the natural world, they are also dynamic and shaped by cultural values. The sciences and attendant technologies could be very responsive to a population that participates in and uses them responsibly. In this essay, Nancy Brickhouse and Julie Kittleson argue for re-visioning the sciences in ways that respond to diversity. By way of educational processes, the sciences might be reshaped to advance critical issues such as social justice and eco-justice. This vision of science and science education opens up new possibilities for what counts as scientific knowledge and what it means to participate in science. We envision schools where young people learn to engage in science in ways that lead to the development of the science we need. To disengage in science is to leave it in the hands of elites whose values may work against the possibility of an ecologically and socially just society.