New trends in physics teaching, v.4; The ... - unesdoc - Unesco

New Trends in Physics Teaching IV
Of course this was good training for those of us who went on to universities, but it gave very little
feel for the concept of energy. Few would now deny that students ought to consider the sources
of energy and the uses to which it is put in our homes, in the community and in society. Some
understanding of how electricity is generated and distributed should supplement school experiments
on electric currents. Of course, a detailed treatment of nuclear physics may not be
appropriate in schools, but some understanding of energy seems essential to young people
emerging into a world in which decisions have to be made about nuclear energy. Otherwise
nothing but emotion wil govern their decisions.
For many of us in our undergraduate days the teaching of entropy was enshrouded in a series
of thermodynamic equations very remote from reality. We acquired great skill in manipulating
those equations, especially since such manipulation gave satisfaction to the examiners, but how
much understanding did we really have? Yet the second law of thermodynamics is fundamental
to the use of energy in society today. Our teaching should bring out that relevance.
ONE ATTEMPT TO FIND A SOLUTION
Over ten years ago the Association for Science Education (ASE) in the United Kingdom was
advocating that in addition to Pure Science (Science for the Inquiring Mind), there should be two
other components in Science Education: first, ‘Science for Action’ and secondly, ‘Science for
Citizens.’ We learnt about conduction, convection and radiation in our study of pure science, but
where to put a convector heater in a room was ‘Science for Action.’ It was less obvious how we
could incorporate the component ‘Science for Citizens’ into our teaching. Five years later James
Callaghan, then Prime Minister, speaking at Ruskin College, urged that science teaching should be
more relevant to the needs of society. Science teachers did not much like the implication that
much of their teaching was not relevant, but again it was not clear what should be done. The
trouble was that many of us had gone to a university to study physics and had then returned to
school to teach what we ourselves had been taught. We knew some physics, but little of the world
outside the classroom. What teachers needed was help.
It was for this reason that ASE set up its ‘Science in Society’ project in 1976. It was decided
that in the first instance it should develop a one-year course suitable for 16 and 17 year old
students as this could immediately be used in secondary schools as a General Studies course in
the British sixth form system; there was a great virtue in getting something straight into the
curriculum. This was the short term aim; the long term aim was to help teachers to become better
informed so that at all levels they could show the relevance of their teaching to the world outside
the classroom. Over 120 science teachers and more than 100 scientists, industrialists, engineers
and professional people were involved in the development of the project; after three years of
trials in fifty-two schools of various kinds, the material was published in 198 1 [ 1 I .
The emphasis in ASE’s ‘Science in Society’ project is on help for teachers. There is already
much evidence that teachers who have used the course find the experience influencing all the
rest of their teaching. Science teachers certainly do need help and although ASE’s project is
amongst the first to be developed, it is already clear that there wil be much similar work done
elsewhere in the world in the next few years. The work being done on ‘Physics in Society’ in the
Netherlands, for example, is considered later in thisvolume.
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