What is Science?

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[edit] Introduction

Science is one of the core curriculum areas in the elementary school, and all students are required to take a number of science courses in middle school and high school.

As students study a discipline such as science, they form a mental model of the discipline. This mental model grows in complexity and correctness as the student studies more science and gains in cognitive maturity.

Thus, it is interesting and instructive to ask students at various grade levels—as well as preservice and inservice teachers—the question, "What is science?"

When preservice elementary school teachers are asked this question, they typically respond by mentioning Scientific Method and can often give a definition or a brief outline of what that means. Their college education typically includes a year of science courses and a science methods course.

[edit] Some Definitions

Quoting from the New Mexico Public Education Department:

Science is both a body of knowledge and a set of processes for advancing that knowledge. More specifically, science is mankind's interconnected, internally consistent, growing body of knowledge about natural and man-made objects and phenomena of the past, present, and future; a body of knowledge that is based on repeatable experimentation with, or observation of, these natural and man-made objects and phenomena, that is organized and extended using logic and mathematics, and that is validated by the testing of hypotheses.

Quoting from the Wikipedia:

  • Science, in the broadest sense, refers to any system of knowledge which attempts to model objective reality. In a more restricted sense, science refers to a system of acquiring knowledge based on the scientific method, as well as to the organized body of knowledge gained through such research. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science
  • A method of reaming about the world by applying the principles of the scientific method, which includes making empirical observations, proposing hypotheses to explain those observations, and testing those hypotheses in valid and reliable ways; also refers to the organized body of knowledge that ... farahsouth.cgu.edu/dictionary/
  • The systematic study of humans and their environment based on the deductions and inferences which can be made, and the general laws which can be formulated, from reproducible observations and measurements of events and parameters within the universe. (Macquarie Dictionary) www.arc.gov.au/general/glossary.htm
  • A branch of knowledge based on objectivity and involving observation and experimentation. www.spaceforspecies.ca/glossary/s.htm

In brief summary, science involves carefully done descriptions, classification, and predictions about nature and technology. The discipline of science has developed vocabulary and notation for use in description and prediction, and it makes extensive use of mathematics. Modern science makes extensive use of computer modeling—this is called computational science and it involves computational thinking.

[edit] What is the Scientific Method?

Many definitions of science, and many people answering the "What is science" question mention Scientific Method. A useful follow-up question is, "What is the Scientific Method." Quoting from the Wikipedia:

Scientific method is a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. It is based on gathering observable, empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning. The scientific method consists of the collection of data through observation and experimentation, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses.
Although procedures vary from one field of inquiry to another, identifiable features distinguish scientific inquiry from other methodologies of knowledge. Scientific researchers propose hypotheses as explanations of phenomena, and design experimental studies to test these hypotheses. These steps must be repeatable in order to predict dependably any future results. Theories that encompass wider domains of inquiry may bind many hypotheses together in a coherent structure. This in turn may help form new hypotheses or place groups of hypotheses into context.
Among other facets shared by the various fields of inquiry is the conviction that the process must be objective to reduce a biased interpretation of the results. Another basic expectation is to document, archive and share all data and methodology so it is available for careful scrutiny by other scientists, thereby allowing other researchers the opportunity to verify results by attempting to reproduce them. This practice, called full disclosure, also allows statistical measures of the reliability of these data to be established.

[edit] What is Scientific Literacy?

The National Science Education Standards describes science literacy as follows: “Scientific literacy means that a person can ask, find, or determine answers to questions derived from curiosity about everyday experiences. It means that a person has the ability to describe, explain, and predict natural phenomena. Scientific literacy entails being able to read with understanding articles about science in the popular press and to engage in social conversation about the validity of the conclusions. Scientific literacy implies that a person can identify scientific issues underlying national and local decisions and express positions that are scientifically and technologically informed. A literate citizen should be able to evaluate the quality of scientific information on the basis of its source and the methods used to generate it. Scientific literacy also implies the capacity to pose and evaluate arguments based on evidence and to apply conclusions from such arguments appropriately.” (National Academy of Sciences, 1966. NSES, page 22)

[edit] Some Excellent Science-Related Videos

Ocean explorer Robert Ballard takes us on a mindbending trip to hidden worlds underwater, where he and other researchers are finding unexpected life, resources, even new mountains. He makes a case for serious exploration and mapping. Google Ocean, anyone?
Medical animator David Bolinsky presents 9 minutes of stunning animation that show the bustling life inside a cell. Built by his company, XVIVO, to teach Harvard medical students, the clip features sweeping cinematic values and even a little drama. It communicates not only the facts of life, but life's truth and beauty.
To date, there hasn't been an overarching theory of how the human brain really works, Jeff Hawkins argues in this compelling talk. That's because we still haven't defined intelligence accurately. But one thing's for sure, he says: The brain isn't like a powerful computer processor. It's more like a memory system that records everything we experience and helps us predict, intelligently, what will happen next. Bringing this new brain science to computer devices will enable powerful new applications—and it will happen sooner than you think.
Energy guru Amory Lovins lays out his plan for weaning the US off oil and revitalizing the economy in the process. It's the subject of his book Winning the Oil Endgame, and he makes it sound fairly simple: On one hand, the deadly risks of continued dependency, and on the other, some win-win solutions.
  • Technology, Entertainment, Design (TED). A number of the TED talks are science-oriented. The talks are videos, usually about 20 minutes in length. See http://www.ted.com/index.php. Quoting from the Website: "TED … started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds. Since then its scope has become ever broader."

[edit] National Science Digital Library

The National Science Digital Library"NSDL is the Nation's online library for education and research in Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics. Quoting from About NSDL:

Mission. The National Science Digital Library (NSDL) was created by the National Science Foundation to provide organized access to high quality resources and tools that support innovations in teaching and learning at all levels of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education.
Overview. The rapid acceleration of information available via the internet makes locating high-quality, accurate, and truly useful educational resources challenging for teachers and learners. Educators, in particular, need efficient and reliable methods to discover and use science and math materials that will help them meet the demands of instruction, assessment, and professional development.
NSDL was established by the National Science Foundation (NSF) in 2000 as an online library which directs users to exemplary resources for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education and research. NSDL provides an organized point of access to STEM content that is aggregated from a variety of other digital libraries, NSF-funded projects, and NSDL-reviewed web sites. NSDL also provides access to services and tools that enhance the use of this content in a variety of contexts. NSDL is designed primarily for K-16 educators, but anyone can access NSDL.org and search the library at no cost. Access to most of the resources discovered through NSDL is free; however, some content providers may require a login, or a nominal fee or subscription to retrieve their specific resources.

Notice the emphasis on K-16 education. K-6 Science Refreshers is a good example of the resources in this category. Here, materials can be accessed by grade level (K-2, 3-4, 5-6, K-6) and science area (earth science, astronomy, life science, physical science).

[edit] Lawrence Hall of Science Study

A 2007 Lawrence Hall of Science study gathered information from 923 elementary schools in the San Francisco Bay Area of California. About 80 percent of those teachers said they spent 60 minutes of less each week teaching science.

The report contains information that suggests many elementary school teachers do not feel they are adequately prepared to teach science, and that the amount of time devoted to teaching science has decreased substantially over the past decade.

[edit] Science Education

NEA (May 2008). Adequacy, and Equity in Education Technology. Results of a Survey of America’s Teachers and Support Professionals on Technology in Public Schools and Classrooms. Quoting from the Preface of this 72 page report:

As s public school educators face mounting pressure to uphold professional standards for themselves and academic standards for their students, they need the resources and support necessary to meet these challenges. Although technology is arguably one of the more important resources in education, we know far too little about how much access educators really have to adequate technology because technology is so variable and difficult to measure at the school level. Therefore, the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) sought to examine the state of resources and the sup- port provided for education technology in public schools and classrooms nationwide through a joint membership survey. As advocates for educators, both organizations firmly believe that access, adequacy, and equitable distribution of technology across schools and classrooms is critical for educators to prepare their students for success in this changing global society. This collaboration between the NEA and AFT represents not only a desire to assess the realities of educational technology but also a declaration of our commitment to meeting the needs of educators and students.

Many people and organizations have worked diligently to develop scope and sequence for PreK-12 science education. Over past decades, the US National Science Foundation has funded a number of curriculum development projects and a substantial number of teacher inservice and preservice education projects. Science education is a major challenge because:

  1. The overall discipline of science and technology is very large and is growing quite rapidly.
  2. There are sharply differing opinions as to what should be taught, and when it should be taught. Evolution versus creationism is a widely publicized example of this situation.

The first of these two challenges is a particular challenge to elementary school teachers who must teach many different subject areas and who have only a modest level of preparation in science. Teachers of science at the secondary school level are more apt to have at least a minor in some field of science, and may well have major in one of the sub disciplines of science.

The second of these two challenges often involves people of sharply different religious or other ideological points of view. Teachers,parents, schools, and entire school systems or communities can get involved in very heated disagreements in these areas.



[edit] Science and Supercomputers

Computer modeling lies at the heart of much of frontiers of modern science. Computer models get better through research (on the underlying science and models) and through use of faster computers.

Most people find it challenging to imagine the amount of computation being done in some of the models. Weather forecasting provides a good example. Quoting from the 9/28/08 issue of the Government Computer News:

“The limiting factor to more reliable climate predictions at higher resolution is not scientific ideas but computational capacity to implement those ideas,” said Jay Fein, a program director at NSF’s Division of Atmospheric Sciences.
…
To produce a picture of a single day of the world’s climate, the model must perform 700 billion calculations, according to NCAR. But all that computing power produces a picture with a peak resolution of only 1 degree by 1 degree, or an area of about 3,900 square miles.
…
One of the tools that will be available for that type of work is Roadrunner, the NNSA supercomputer being set up at DOE’s Los Alamos National Laboratory. As the first computer to break the petaflop barrier, it more than doubled the speed of the next-fastest computer, the IBM BlueGene/L housed at the Lawrence Livermore National Lab. Although Roadrunner’s primary mission will be to simulate the decay of nuclear materials for weapons research, scientists will also use it for research into climate change, astronomy, energy and human genome research.

Here is a quote about a supercomputer being built in Australia:

A $100 MILLION supercomputer capable of processing 400 trillion pieces of information a second to help scientists accelerate their research into diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer's will be built in Melbourne.
The powerful machine will be able to generate, manage and manipulate enormous amounts of information — such as extensive patient records or genetic databases — and make it easier to map the spread and treatment of viruses.
When it is completed in 2011, Victoria will be home to the largest supercomputer in the world dedicated to the study of life sciences.

A list of various supercomputer-based projects being funded by the U.S. Department of Energy is available at http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/research/4247057.html. Quoting from the 1/30/08 article:

The DOE recently awarded 265 million processor-hours to 55 scientific projects ranging from climate change to fusion power. For a sense of scale, a project receiving 1 million hours could run on 1000 processors for 1000 hours, taking about 41 days. Running the same million-hour project on a dual-processor desktop computer would take more than 57 years. This is the fifth year the DOE has opened its supercomputers to the scientific community. And the program is expanding; this year’s processor-hours triple last year’s awards. “Access to supercomputers speeds up innovation,” says Barbara Helland, the manager of the program. “One team doing climate research was able to run a 100-year model in three days instead of many months.”

Here are a few of the projects:

  • Seeking Fusion Energy; Principal investigator: Jeff Candy, General Atomics; Title: “Gyrokinetic Steady State Transport Simulations.”
  • Finding a Cure for Parkinson’s; Principal Investigator: Igor Tsigelny, University of California—San Diego; Title: “Simulation and Modeling of Synuclein-Based ‘Protofibril Structures’ as a Means of Understanding the Molecular Basis of Parkinson’s Disease.”
  • Predicting Climate Change; Principal Investigator: Warren Washington, National Center for Atmospheric Research; Title: “Climate-Science Computational End Station Development and Grand Challenge Team.”
  • Cleaner Fuels for New Engines; Principal Investigator: Jacqueline Chen, Sandia National Laboratories; Title: “High-Fidelity Simulations for Clean and Efficient Combustion of Alternative Fuels.”
  • Harnessing Molecular Machines; Principal Investigator: Benoit Roux, Argonne National Lab & The University of Chicago; Title: “Gating Mechanism of Membrane Proteins.”

[edit] References

Barry, Ray (2008). Computational biochemist uncovers a molecular clue to evolution. Florida State University. Retrieved 10/7/08: http://fsu.edu/news/2008/09/10/molecular.clue/. Quoting from the article:

A Florida State University researcher who uses high-powered computers to map the workings of proteins has uncovered a mechanism that gives scientists a better understanding of how evolution occurs at the molecular level.
…
"This also represents a big step forward in our efforts to create computational simulations of biological processes," Yang said. "In this case, we first made a prediction of the enzyme structure via computer and later verified it through direct observation in a laboratory, rather than the other way around. This is a most unusual accomplishment, and one that indicates we are becoming more advanced in our ability to answer questions relating to biological functions at the molecular level."

LHS (2007). The status of science education in Bay Area elementary schools. Lawrence Hall of Science, UC Berkley. Retrieved 10/266/07: http://www.lawrencehallofscience.org/rea/bayareastudy/.

[edit] Author or Authors

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