I have been indulging in my favorite airplane activity:
catching up with recent issues of the journal Science. Last year the journal started a
series of essays on inquiry based instruction. I learned lab science the old
fashioned way - the way it is still taught - the lab book instructed you what
to do and how to do it. You did it until getting the prescribed answer and then
wrote the lab report. That IS what science is about, right? The 'right' answer?
So in the first of this year's essays, a group of
5-year-olds were given a box containing a varied mix of seeds, nuts, pebbles
and shells and spent weeks investigating "what is a seed"? Open ended. No right answer. Fun.
The article opened with the assertion that 28 percent of
US adults are scientifically illiterate. Ya think? And that includes some presidential
candidates. Huh.
1 comment:
28% sounds low, based on the adults in my household.
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