A Push for Reform in Science Education.

 Coming out of High School I had a good understanding of scientific facts like gravity, evolution, and space. I could tell someone else about gravity, how you can take an object and because of the mass of the earth, it has a gravitational pull that no matter what, when the object is dropped it will fall to the floor. But did I understand the process of taking repeated observations and turning these observations into a scientific theory or scientific fact? No. However after reading Davis, Francis, & Friesen's (2019) STEM Education by Design, chapter 6 (Science) I thought back to my high school experiences and questioned if I had learned about inquiring rather than simply accepting fact. On page 101 inquiry is condensed into the understanding of an "iterative process of working with established facts and accumulating additional evidence in order to defend, extend, and/or challenge interpretations" (Davis, Francis, Friesen. 2019). So taking this section about inquiry and comparing it to my understanding of scientific facts was I inquiring in that example by repeatedly dropping an object on the floor? Sort of. But would I have had a better understanding of how these facts had been termed a fact had I understood the scientific process? Yes. In this chapter the authors breakdown the distinction between scientific facts and theories. Facts can be understood as laws, principles, and observations on the universe and how it works while the method is a process of experimentation of repeated observation and verification to validate scientific facts. My high school science experiences were largely based around extending on  already known scientific facts. After watching the video presented in class this week I had new perspective on how science classes could be run in classroom settings. In this video, students were to inquire about the properties of river water near their school to answer their own questions or questions from the teacher. In this experiment, the information is relevant, by connecting to real-life situations, and that is something I wish I had more in my science classrooms. Throughout high school my Biology classes often discussed the evolution of animals from Africa, which I have never seen before, or the cellular processes inside the body which I only saw videos of or through microscopes which I rarely access. What I admired about the river lesson was that it allowed students to explore on their own, develop their own understandings and carry out their own process to demonstrate their findings. They were presented with a relevant topic and rather than being told what they will find under the microscope, they went through the scientific method to make their own discoveries. I then pondered how could the scientific method be emphasized in high school classrooms and how could teachers make science lessons more meaningful? I wonder if there is a way that established scientific facts could be explored as unknown and students could feel they are making discoveries, to make learning more engaging than simply repeating observations that were discovered long ago. The river lesson resonated heavily with me on an idea of reform for how science can be taught. I now believe the process rather than the facts should be emphasized. This belief could tie back to constructivist theorists of learning who deem learning as a process of construing sense. Expanding on my beliefs, I think it is important to teach students how to make their own observations and opinions to encourage critical thinking rather than repeating already established scientific facts and covering the process of how others did it rather than having children explore on their own. 

References

Davis, B., Francis, K., & Freisen, S. 2019. Stem Education By Design. Ch. 6 Science.