Science Education - 4 Ways to Improve Student Learning

Posted by David R. Wetzel Aug 29, 2008

I have been in the science education field for over 20 years and have come to realize that a fundamental change has to be made. This change has to made, not at the teacher level, at the state and national levels.

Science is not a subject in which the entire extent of knowledge is based on how much one can memorize for a test. Science is learned from doing science, not having science done for you!

Here are four basic things, that if done, would improve science education in this country and keep us from falling even further behind in science - compared to the rest of the industialized nations.

• Let kids explore science and investigate science problems. This will avoid killing the curiosity of kids by the time they enter high school. If you went to work and had to memorize facts or terms all day you would be bored out of your mind.
• Students need to learn that they will not always have the right answer and that there is typically more than one correct answer. This is not an esteem thing - this is real science. If scientist always got it right, cancer would have been cured a long time ago.
• Students need to be challenged to use their brains and think. They need to learn to ask questions like "Why are things as the are and not otherwise?" - Johannes Kepler a German Astronomer.
• More money needs to be spent on science education. As a science teacher, virtually everything I taught with was purchased with my own money. The school districts provided very little beyond the basics. If I had not purchased these items, all my classes would have been reading, memorizing, and worksheets.

Resources

Who Killed the Electric Car - Again!

Generating Electricity with Potato Batteries

Web-Based Science Inquiry Learning Centers

Science Investigations Using Google Earth