Asia-Pacific Forum on Science Learning and Teaching, Volume 5, Issue 1, Foreword (Apr., 2004)
Robert E. YAGER
Using Social Issues as Contexts for K-16 Science Education
Previous Contents Next

Science-Technology-Society (STS) and Typical School Science

The 1970s have often been described as years of protest—years when government policies, social justice, family structure, the economy, and established organizations and structures were called into question. This decade resulted in many educators questioning the wisdom of the reforms of the 60s which followed the Soviet moves into space with the first man-made satellite Sputnik. Even though Sputnik was a significant technological achievement, it stimulated many changes in school science including a focus on basic science constructs. These changes were supported by the U.S. government (mainly the National Science Foundation) in expanding the national role in reforming school science with scores of new national “Curriculum” developments at a cost of over $2 billion over 15 years—1957-1972. These efforts were headed by scientists at some of the most prestigious universities across the U.S. Jerrold Zacharias, a physicist, headed the first of these developments at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It was conceived in 1956—prior to the launching of Sputnik. Zacharias’ project was called the Physical Science Study Committee (PSSC) which sought, among other things, to rid the school physics course of “technology” and to present the essence of physics “as it is known to scientists”. It was not an STS course—but it represents the extremes of the 60s when nearly all the curriculum efforts sought to identify major constructs that characterized the various disciplines of science (at the secondary level) and included information about and practice with the skills (processes) used by scientists in their quest for more and better understanding of the objects and events comprising the natural universe.

The 1970s ushered in protests of schools as social institutions and of their curricula which seemed not to serve students well. Such times of doubt and emotion often result in new ideas for resolving the perceived crises. There have been several attempts to reform science education and in ways that served the current and future needs of students better over our 200 years as a nation. However, few of these received national attention and funding. STS was one of the ideas that emerged at the end of the 70s. One of the largest of these to emerge early in the 80s was funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) headed by Rustum Roy, an internationally respected materials scientist (College of Engineering) at Penn State University. It was called Science through Science-Technology-Society (Roy, 1984).

STS had emerged in the U.K. as a national priority in the last three decades of the 20th Century. It was a reform effort that grew rapidly in Europe with major projects centered in the U.K., Netherlands, Scandinavia, and Israel. All of the projects sought to use science and technology to resolve social issues. It was a philosopher in the U.K., John Ziman, who suggested the term STS to cover the several reforms that moved beyond a re-shuffling of science concepts and a concern for process skills—both without concern for real world contexts or any consideration other than the major concepts of the basic science disciplines. Rarely was there any philosophical, historical, or sociological basis for the information and skills identified as important and worthy of “impartation” to students. Ziman (Ziman, 1980) reviewed the situation carefully and defined the various aspects of STS and their various proponents.

Project Synthesis, an NSF research project, conceived by Norris Harms at the University of Colorado, was developed in the mid 70s and included four person teams of national leaders in elementary science, biology, physical science, inquiry, and STS (Harms, 1977). The research used three major NSF studies that included ten case studies (Stake & Easley, 1978), a national survey of what was occurring in the U.S. schools in terms of science education (Weiss, 1978), a review of relevant research literature (Helgeson, et al., 1977), as well as the Third National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) which was released in 1978 thereby providing information about student learning. The 1978 NAEP results also included the first look at the affective domain in addition to student assessment of basic science concepts. These four data sources provided the research teams with opportunity to synthesize the “Actual State” of science education as the 80s emerged in each of the five areas listed above. Other research, government reports, textbook analyses, and indicators of past failures comprised other data that the research teams used to craft a “Desired State”—or, visions of what indicators suggested as means for achieving reforms and greater success in terms of real student learning with understanding and utility. Project Synthesis provided an opportunity to chart the pathway to the future; it provided a contrast to all the negative reports and analyses which characterized educational life in general during the early 1970s.

One important aspect of the Project Synthesis research efforts was the Goal Clusters that Harms used to frame the three year study. These four goals included: science for meeting personal needs, science for making societal decisions, science for career awareness, and science for further academic preparation. These goal areas were all considered important to the research teams. Unfortunately, however, only the last goal was found to be in evidence in classrooms of more than 90% of the science teachers and almost 100% of the 16,000 school districts in the U.S. Almost everyone assumed that academic preparation was most important and dictated what was done with respect to science education in K-12 settings.

STS was emerging as a major reform effort in the U.S. as the 80s arrived. It was a reform that was seen as focusing on a science for all and as meeting the goal areas other than academic preparation. For many of us this was the most important development and began a debate of the importance and centrality of social issues as organizers and a form of content for school science.

 

Copyright (C) 2004 HKIEd APFSLT. Volume 5, Issue 1, Foreword (Apr., 2004). All Rights Reserved.