This is the first of 3 postings today about sustainability and the science curriculum. \u00a0They are designed to be read in sequence. \u00a0Any literature cited will be set out at the end of post 3.<\/p>\n
It seems very evident that environment \/ sustainability issues are excellent examples of how science concepts and processes can be exemplified in the \u2018real world\u2019 \u2013 the one that young people will grow up, live, work, and become patents themselves, in.\u00a0 It is also evident from research for the DfE (Barratt Hacking et al., 2010) that young people do tend to find the study of such issues inherently interesting and motivating \u2013 possibly because of a realisation that it is their future (and world) that is being considered.\u00a0 But this argument, which is essentially a recourse to the slippery notion of relevance is not the only way of thinking about the science curriculum and sustainability and, in what follows, I contend that there are two quite different sets of arguments about how sustainability can usefully be seen in relation to the compulsory school science curriculum. \u00a0These are:<\/p>\n
[ 1 ] Sustainability<\/em> \u2013 as one of a number of sources of social and personal relevance that give purchase and meaning to science concepts and processes, and hence enhance the learning of science.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
This might be termed: teaching concepts through a consideration of sustainability<\/p>\n
[ 2 ] Sustainability<\/em> \u2013 as one of a number of socio-economic perspectives without which the full realization of an appropriate scientific literacy as the goal of a science education will not be possible.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
This might be termed: teaching concepts to enable a consideration of sustainability<\/p>\n
The first involves an extrinsic argument which says that science teaching will likely be more engaging and effective because of what sustainability, and young people\u2019s interest in it, brings to it through this external validity. \u00a0The second involves an intrinsic argument which says that science teaching requires such a socio-economic perspective in order for it to be<\/em> a science education that enables scientific literacy to be developed.\u00a0 Here, the validity is internal.<\/p>\n
It seems to me that the intrinsic \/ internal argument is much the stronger of the two, especially as this appeal to external relevance has failed so often before. \u00a0Importantly, the two approaches are not alternatives, but are better viewed as complementary.\u00a0 Approach [ 2 ] certainly implies approach [ 1 ], and would be much weaker without it.\u00a0 And approach [ 1 ] would likely be emasculated without the framing provided by [ 2 ].<\/p>\n
In the next post, I shall develop the rationale for what is set out here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This is the first of 3 postings today about sustainability and the science curriculum. \u00a0They are designed to be read in sequence. \u00a0Any literature cited will be set out at the end of post 3. It seems very evident that...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=685"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}