science teaching methods and goals

[kaysixteen]

Thanks all for answering.   Additional thoughts and questions include:

1) I am gratified to hear several of ye mention statistics-- I had forgotten to bring this up myself.   Do any American hss regularly require any stats courses, or place a significant stats component in another math class?  I took the honors math track (public hs class of '85), and it was pretty standard what was done in hss then-- Algebra I in the 8th grade, then algebra II, geometry, trig ('pre-calculus'), and then AP calc.  Nary a mention of stats of any kind anywhere, including in any science class.  I know that dear alma mater had stats classes, indeed each natural science dept and social sci dept more or less taught their own stats classes required for their own majors, and of course the math dept had a general stats class that I suppose could have been taken by non-majors, I guess (though I would not have the foggiest notion of what the prereqs would have been).  But the science distribution classes I took had no stats components ('Intro to Astrophysics', which actually was the course that was the first in line for those who would be majoring in astronomy, though most of the students were people like me, and 'Evolution and Natural History', which IIRC was heavy into the latter and not so heavy on the former, and had no math whatsoever (I did get an A, which I probably would not have had there been such a component, though I did get a B+ or A- in the astrophysics class, but there was no calc used in it, IIRC, just regular math).   So how do we  get these stats into the average undergrad's background, if they are not going to be taught in hs?  There is no question that, in this book that I am reading, when the authors demonstrate their points about scientific illiteracy, and how not to try to explain things to the average bloke, they start to use statisitical arguments and my eyes just start glazing  over (and another point they make is that people who are making bad, and even overtly bogus, scientific assertions often use bad statistics.  I know and teach the 'fallacy of illegitimate use of statistics' in general study skills and critical thinking class, but have to do so with minimal actual statistical examples, not only because of my background, but because I know my students' backgrounds as well.

2) Would you all be amenable to the development of something like a 'scientific literacy 101' class, as a requirement, perhaps team-taught not only by natural science professors, but even by librarians, philosophers, and historians?  what would be the plusses and minuses of such a class, and what should it entail?  And if no such class is going to be offered at one's institution, what could people like me, who teach crit thinking classes in non-scientific-based areas, be legitimately able to incorporate in such classes, in the way of adding a basic scientific literacy component into them?

3) I am afraid I gotta disagree with the idea that hard books like Kuhn, and similarly difficult scientific literacy content could and should be added into middle school curricula, or even say 9th/ 10th grade.  There are two reasons for this 1) most kids that age are not intellectually developed/ mature enough to proft from such instruction, and giving it to them anyhow runs the risk of actually encouraging and strengthening the 'I hate science/ it's too hard' mindset, which in virtually any subject area becomes very very hard to overcome thereafter, once the student has actually developed the requisite intellectual maturity, and 2) like it or not, kids in these earlier years are very good at memorization, and should be given real opportunities to memorize the needed basic scientific facts they will have to have to undergird any potential serious scientific studies later.  As a language teacher, I know that you have to learn, well, grammar and vocab, in any language you want to learn.   This is especially important in the cases of ancient, non-spoken languages-- you gotta know the grammar, or you will just be guessing.  I see little reason to suspect that science learning works fundamentally differently here.

[Vkw10]

Nephew's high school offered two statistics courses. One was aimed at students not planning to attend college, focused on probability and descriptive statistics, and was taken by 5-10% of students. The other was an AP course, taken by a handful of students who were also taking geometry or pre-calculus. My brother's children do not have option of taking statistics in high school.

[Parasaurolophus]

For the record, I mentioned Kuhn et al. in relation to university courses, not tenth grade or lower.

[spork]

[. . .]

As a language teacher, I know that you have to learn, well, grammar and vocab, in any language you want to learn.   This is especially important in the cases of ancient, non-spoken languages-- you gotta know the grammar, or you will just be guessing.  I see little reason to suspect that science learning works fundamentally differently here.

In the USA, the approach to educating people in languages other than English and in science is very similar, in my opinion. It ought to start in third grade, with people who know how to teach these subjects (read up on how little former education majors know about how people learn, for example, to read), and continue through college. Instead we have post-secondary curricula that require a single semester of math (where options often include something like "math concepts"), a single semester of whichever science course sounds easiest, and one or two semesters of a foreign language. It's check the box and move on, with the outcome being a lack of literacy in all three areas. Meanwhile I regularly encounter international undergrads who are trilingual and whose high school educations are for the most part equivalent to three years of college in the USA.

[polly_mer]

You cannot wait until college to teach scientific literacy.

Teaching basic science facts doesn't teach scientific thinking or literacy.

The systematic problem-solving parts of scientific thinking are much more important than any body of facts, particularly for those who will not become professional scientists.  Kindergartners can design the systematic explorations with minimal guidance.  Science isn't hard if you start early enough on the what-if exploration instead of disconnected random facts.

Basic statistical ideas require very little math because you can talk about consistency in results of someone else's analysis and goodness of assumptions.

Real statistics require calculus.  One ideas I'd like to see get more traction is calculus is basic math.  Calculus is the language of physics and other scientific knowledge.  You can't understand many topics with differential equations, the fourth semester of calculus.

[Ruralguy]

My daughter goes to a private school, but what I see in her science curriculum is  mixture of old school fact based worksheets, maker space stuff, and investigative questions, such look for and describe different types of clouds or rocks or whatever.
List differences and similarities, hypothesize as to what leads to similarities and differences, then do research as to what experts say. This is elementary education.
MS and HS introduces traditional lab science.

Seeing basic stats earlier and at every level would be very helpful. Our graduating science majors don't know crud about stats. Also agree about calculus. Relatively easy graphing and basic spreadsheet stuff in EXCEL can help students solve differential equations at a fundamental and closer to conceptual level.

[apl68]

[. . .]

As a language teacher, I know that you have to learn, well, grammar and vocab, in any language you want to learn.   This is especially important in the cases of ancient, non-spoken languages-- you gotta know the grammar, or you will just be guessing.  I see little reason to suspect that science learning works fundamentally differently here.

In the USA, the approach to educating people in languages other than English and in science is very similar, in my opinion. It ought to start in third grade, with people who know how to teach these subjects (read up on how little former education majors know about how people learn, for example, to read), and continue through college. Instead we have post-secondary curricula that require a single semester of math (where options often include something like "math concepts"), a single semester of whichever science course sounds easiest, and one or two semesters of a foreign language. It's check the box and move on, with the outcome being a lack of literacy in all three areas. Meanwhile I regularly encounter international undergrads who are trilingual and whose high school educations are for the most part equivalent to three years of college in the USA.

This is because rampant collapse of family structures in the U.S. has resulted in a horrifying percentage of American students having essentially zero support at home for their education.  The children come to school not even knowing what books and numbers are, how to sit still and listen, or how to have a conversation that doesn't consist of shouting and arguing.  Most public schools have to deal with a significant percentage of these students who start out desperately far behind and with no foundation of learning to build on.  It's small wonder we spend 13 years trying just to teach the three Rs.  Not all American students are in such dire straights, of course, but the presence of so many classmates who are has the effect of lowering standards all around.  It creates a tyranny of low expectations for American youth, in educational achievement and in much else.

[apl68]

You cannot wait until college to teach scientific literacy.

Teaching basic science facts doesn't teach scientific thinking or literacy.

The systematic problem-solving parts of scientific thinking are much more important than any body of facts, particularly for those who will not become professional scientists.  Kindergartners can design the systematic explorations with minimal guidance.  Science isn't hard if you start early enough on the what-if exploration instead of disconnected random facts.

Basic statistical ideas require very little math because you can talk about consistency in results of someone else's analysis and goodness of assumptions.

Real statistics require calculus.  One ideas I'd like to see get more traction is calculus is basic math.  Calculus is the language of physics and other scientific knowledge.  You can't understand many topics with differential equations, the fourth semester of calculus.

I can see some of what your talking about as I look back on the science education I received in school.  I've mentioned on another thread that we were fortunate to have science teachers who cared about their subjects and could stimulate interest.  But we didn't have any science at all until seventh grade.  Our classes also consisted mostly of learning scientific facts, and not so much observation and the scientific method.  The interest it stimulated had the potential to encourage students to become informed laypeople, but gave limited preparation for actually going into science.

Nor was our math instruction all that good.  Math classes were mostly taught by coaches and such who'd been through a brief math teacher course.  I only recall one math teacher who ever showed much personal enthusiasm for the subject.  It was just something you had to get through as an arbitrary requirement.  The most advanced math our school offered was trig.  I could have taken calculus in college.  But it wasn't required, and I wasn't on a natural sciences track, and so I didn't take it.  I regret that now.

[polly_mer]

While we're on the topic, another annoyance is focusing on a number with no awareness of how the number was generated.  Often the mathematical operations to get the number is much less useful than the assumptions that went into the calculation.

For example, if you only surveyed people who answered the phone on a Tuesday afternoon, then the questions include: 

* How did you select the phone numbers?  Cell phones aren't always in the relevant local database.  Unlisted numbers are excluded.  The not-answered calls need to be accounted for to ensure a big enough sample.

* Is there any reason to believe that the people who can answer the phone on a Tuesday afternoon and are willing to complete a ten-minute survey are different than the general member of the community?  For example, many of us work without access to a personal phone during that time.  The parent wrangling multiple little ones or doing other caretaking duties may not deemed the survey worthwhile.

* Is there any reason to believe that some answers will be less truthful than other answers or that the answers will reflect the whole range?  For example, asking about sexual activity or other highly personal detail is not neutral, especially with a live interviewer.

I have taken political surveys and given up because the questions assumed false dichotomies (e.g., will you support the candidate in favor of schools or the candidate in favor of libraries) or neglected most of the answers in the actual possibility space (e.g., are you voting for candidate A or candidate B when there are six people running for the local office?)



These aren't math questions, but are accessible to even elementary schoolers.

[Ruralguy]

They aren't math questions, but they are scientific questions, especially social scientific. But I have noticed that many undergrads in physical sciences don't know squat about bias (nowhere near as much as psychologists, etc.), so they could use a "soft" introduction.  I know, Polly, that you were thinking of elementary schoolers, and this would be accessible to some, but for some college students, this would be a nice intro too!

[Wahoo Redux]

My 5th grade teacher focused on hands-on basic science (building a device to protect an egg when being dropped; dissecting a cow's eyeball; looking at the sun with a filter on a telescope) but I found this not terribly interesting----I think I remember this guy and his lessons because he was such an obnoxious, demeaning jackass to his students.  I took biology in high school.  It was interesting, partly because the teacher was one of my coaches and I really liked him, but I don't remember much about class material.  I don't think I found it particularly inspiring.  I know nothing about stats.

Then I took geology in college because it was the only science open for enrollment and found it absolutely fascinating.  The class changed me.  I've never looked at rocks, rivers, or mountains the same again. 

I was lucky because I grew up in a family with a number of M.D.s and science Ph.D.s and parents who took us frequently to kiddie museums, but I didn't comprehend the brilliance of science until I was mature enough to appreciate it. 

[polly_mer]

The point of good science education isn't to be inspiring in the sense of finding a calling.

The point is to give the habits of mind to systematically problem solve and to ask questions about why someone claims something is true.  Explanations should involve cause and effect with plausible mechanisms.  Some of the mechanisms are unexpected (for example the quantum mechanics that leads to the photoelectric effect or why heavy objects don't fall faster than lighter objects), but much is within grasp of people under the age of 18.

One of my biggest frustrations recently is how many people readily accepted the extraordinary claim that children don't get and therefore can't transmit the corona virus.  If we go just by normal experience, kids get and transmit viruses all the time, particularly respiratory illnesses.

Thus, when the first claim came in March that was so far outside what we know about about respiratory illnesses, kids, and germ theory, the questions should have been fast and furious about what is different.  As the information keeps rolling in because people are actually doing research instead of just making assertions, the questions change, but still are within the realm of what normal people should think to ask regarding mechanisms and why covid should be different than other closely related viruses.

The standard news outlets couldn't write the overly credulous minor rewrites of press releases if they asked just the mechanism type questions that a good k-12 education should provide.

[Wahoo Redux]

I'm all for anyone who can teach kids how to do science and how to appreciate science whether or not they actually become scientists. 

It amazes me, when we live in an era in which science has made our lives so much better and actually dominates every aspect of our lives, that we have people denying the science of virology.  I suspect this has a lot to do with the steady diet of conspiracy and suspicion we've been feeding ourselves since the Cold War.  How does one counteract this? 

I don't know how you do this with immature minds or the people who have little use for things not associated with sports, popular entertainment, or jobs.  We have the same problems with classical music, poetry, theater, and a host of subjects. Education is always the target.   I was just lucky because I grew up surrounded with interesting people who knew science and appreciated the rest of the world too. 

[kaysixteen]

More random thoughts wrt this very good discussion:

1) I just have to disagree with polly here-- it just ain't true that the average 10-12 year old kid can handle some of the key concepts she thinks should be taught then.   Some, especially those whose moms are PhD chemical engineers, would be able to do so, but many, if not most, will not really be intellectually mature enough to profit from this sort of instruction at this stage, and I contend it is very much better to give them the basic scientific facts to learn, and learn well, as it is certainly true that kids this age can memorize effectively, and a lot.
2) apl is exactly right, and sadly.   Raw intelligence ('IQ') notwithstanding, there is a vast difference in home environments wrt educational fittedness, respect for the idea of getting an education, etc., and the vast differences in the amount of $ spent in various public school districts here only exacerbates this hideous problem.  Indeed, another factor that we will have to be taking into account (and hopefully committing to try to ameliorate) will be the hideous effects of the corona layoff.
3) like it or not, all college kids are not of equal intelligence.   How much of the sort of sci literacy/ critical thinking training we all advocate, is likely to be accessible more or less to any undergrad, vs, how much is probably going to shoot above some?  Recalling my days trying to teach Latin 101 at a mediocre slac that had a language req, well... let's just say that not all my students, like it or not, were up to the task.

[polly_mer]

The last two posts still miss the point of science education as part of general critical thinking for everyone and not anything to do with being on the path to becoming a professional scientist.  Again, my direct professional experience of teaching all those science for teachers classes means I have a very different perspective based on research and experience than people who are just spitballing.  That doesn't mean there's no room for discussion, but some assertions by laypersons are generally sighworthy because they just don't know.

A few years ago, the science education community spent a lot of time and energy on the Next Generation Science Standards.  The standards themselves are written like regulatory standards and are not all that accessible to the general populace.  However, summaries exist that can be useful.

The Next Generation Science Standards summary for kindergarten:

The performance expectations in kindergarten help students formulate answers to questions such as: "What happens if you push or pull an object harder? Where do animals live and why do they live there? What is the weather like today and how is it different from yesterday?" Kindergarten performance expectations include PS2, PS3, LS1, ESS2, ESS3, and ETS1 Disciplinary Core Ideas from the NRC Framework. Students are expected to develop understanding of patterns and variations in local weather and the purpose of weather forecasting to prepare for, and respond to, severe weather. Students are able to apply an understanding of the effects of different strengths or different directions of pushes and pulls on the motion of an object to analyze a design solution. Students are also expected to develop understanding of what plants and animals (including humans) need to survive and the relationship between their needs and where they live. The crosscutting concepts of patterns; cause and effect; systems and system models; interdependence of science, engineering, and technology; and influence of engineering, technology, and science on society and the natural world are called out as organizing concepts for these disciplinary core ideas. In the kindergarten performance expectations, students are expected to demonstrate grade-appropriate proficiency in asking questions, developing and using models, planning and carrying out investigations, analyzing and interpreting data, designing solutions, engaging in argument from evidence, and obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information. Students are expected to use these practices to demonstrate understanding of the core ideas.

Reference: https://www.nextgenscience.org/sites/default/files/K%20combined%20DCI%20standardsf.pdf

Let's just focus on "Students are able to apply an understanding of the effects of different strengths or different directions of pushes and pulls on the motion of an object to analyze a design solution" as being physics related to forces and motion.  In a college physics class for those on the path to becoming a physicist or engineer, I would use differential equations to acculturate the students to the language and ways of thinking about the forces.  Even the statement that Newton's second law is F=ma that many of you may remember from some class is an approximation that ignores having a varying acceleration in time and/or direction.

For a kindergarten class, we can roll balls down ramps of different heights to see the effect of a different strength of push on the ball's motion.  This doesn't have to be fancy: a board on bricks or stacked books with any old ball lying around can show the effect.  One can even use the ladder on the playground slide to hold a board at designated heights and a kickball to get a pretty good demo.  The kindergarteners tend to pick up pretty quickly that height at the top of the ramp matters, but length of ramp does not.  Kindergarteners can understand that a higher slide means you go faster at the end than a lower slide.  Turns in the slide tend to be a slower slide at the end, but a funner ride due to the effect of changing direction (an acceleration in physics parlance, but we don't need to use the term at all).

It is in fact completely wrong to call these activities a "strength of push" because the physics is conversion of potential energy to kinetic energy with a constant force of gravity, but the observations and the questions that kindergarteners can ask will be good enough in terms of thinking of the effect of forces.  You can get kindergarteners to predict what will happen when the ramp is midway between two positions.  You can get kindergarteners to accurately predict approximately how far the ball will go by moving the ramp to a slightly different position between other known positions (e.g., where do we have to put the ramp so the ball will end up near the big tree?).

For looking at effect of direction of force on motion, one can use an air hockey table or any other really smooth surface and a ruler to start a "puck" into motion.  Collisions are fun and again, after just a few scoping activities, kindergarteners are often pretty good at predicting how the puck has to hit another puck or the wall to get to a specific position.  The math on this can be very complicated, but the observations, questions, and predictions by eye are pretty good.

What good does this do the average person outside of ball rolling and air hockey playing?  Being able to predict where objects will end up without doing the math helps with many daily activities outside of sports.  While many of us can recite the memorized six simple machines (wheel and axle, the lever, the inclined plane, the pulley, the screw, and the wedge), the point is that many times you can make a given task easier by using what we know about how force affects motion and select the appropriate simple machine or use something that reduces contact friction.  If all you do is write the six options on the test and then never think of a ramp and putting wheels under the large
heavy object to move it, then your critical thinking education has failed you.


We can do similar things at a kid level for, say, electrical circuits.  The basics of "there has to be a complete path from the energy source to the device and back.  In addition, the resistance along the path has to be lower than the effective push of the power source" is pretty easy for little kids to understand.  A more powerful energy source (measured in the mysterious-for-now volts) can power more or better devices.  A tiny AAA battery doesn't power nearly as much as a car battery, but if you hook up a car battery to something that only needs a AAA battery, then you will overload your devices.

Even series and parallel wiring as an effect is easy to see with something like snap circuits (having enough hand strength to pop in and out tends to limit this to second grade and above).  Again, you want to do this as a guided activity with the teacher, but the basics require zero of the math I would use to teach aspiring engineers. 

Where is this useful?  How do you troubleshoot when an appliance that worked yesterday doesn't work today?  You check that it's plugged in; you wiggle some connections to ensure the path is complete.  You go check the breaker box to ensure that the room circuit is getting power.

How else is it useful?  Talking on a wired landline during an electrical storm means you can be electrocuted because the phone works by electricity.  However, a cell phone doesn't have any of that same problem.  The wiring from a cell phone is self contained and the phone works as a phone by transmitting on the electromagnetic spectrum like a radio broadcast.

How else?  Many of the safety requirements related to what you should do in a thunderstorm if you are caught outside are related to reducing the electrical path possibilities or ensuring that the resistance to flow is much higher. 

What about series and parallel circuits?  Who cares?  Well, you might if it becomes important that any failure along the path should result in a complete shutoff of everything (series) or if you want the other devices to keep going even if one fails (the tragedy of old-school Christmas tree lights where one burnt bulb meant a search for the culprit instead of an obvious dark bulb in a string of bright lights).

The tragedy of treating science as something to appreciate like art is exactly that scientific thinking is something everyone can and should be doing for their own benefit as part of their daily life.  You don't have to be a great singer to enjoy singing in the car and you absolutely don't have to be a professional scientist to realize you need a ramp and a cart to get all that furniture into your house with a minimum of people and effort.