There's an interesting Observations blog entry this afternoon on science education and the need to rethink how we teach students. According to a panel that recently convened at the American Association for the Advancement of Science's annual meeting:
[T]eachers at the high school and undergraduate university level aren't giving students a broad enough understanding of how scientists go about their research. While scientific literacy in the United States is increasing, thanks to the requirement that college students take at least one year of science, the general public is relatively ignorant about the process of scientific inquiry and the nature of science. The importance of clearly defining the field and explaining the methodology behind it are paramount at a time when debates among policy-makers about addressing climate change and among educators about teaching evolution are blurring the public's understanding of the difference between science and ideology, said the panelists...
Previously: Report shows modest increase in U.S. public knowledge of science and Do high school papers hint at the state of science education?
Photo by ASU_PCG
