Education for a Scientific Age: ABSTRACT

Abstract

Science will play an increasingly significant role in the lives of educated people in the years ahead. For this reason, young people going through school now, and those who are yet to be educated, should be getting a basic understanding of the language of science as part of their general education. Most students now in schools, including colleges and universities, are not getting the kind of education in science which will prepare them for life in a scientific age. Science is being presented to them as a body of facts and techniques. Consequently students have little, if any, opportunity to develop an understanding of the basic and concepts common to science. Facts and techniques have a short half-life--a way of becoming obsolete in a hurry. Individuals whose science training has been largely fact- and technology-oriented also become obsolete in a hurry. It is grossly unfair to the young people who are now being educated and those who will be educated in the future to burden them with obsolete training in science. New materials and new courses, which emphasize the structure or broad unifying principles of each science discipline, need to be developed and teachers trained to present science as inquiry. Sound training in science should begin in the early school years to provide children with a conceptual framework which they can use as a base for assimilating and understanding later experiences in science. The new elementary and secondary-school science curriculum materials provide a base on which a sound curriculum can be built, but much remains to be done if tomorrow's citizens are to be scientifically literate. End_of_Article - Last_Page 469------------