Science for Students Today and Tomorrow

Teaching science as a body of peculiar knowledge which exists for students to learn is still a common approach in American secondary schools. This is true today even with the so-called new science programs and their added impetus to the idea of teaching and emphasizing the processes of science in addition to the traditional content of a given discipline. The last ten years have seen great advances. However, much more is needed before we can talk of science in in our schools that is relevant for students both presently and in the future. We have too often accepted new ideas because they are new and not because we have any real understanding of them. We too often merely give lip service to acceptance of a given curriculum design, a kind of teaching strategy, and/or a new evaluation technique concerning certain student learnings