Mollie Deuel's Teaching Portfolio
The nature of science describes the notion that science as a discipline executes a different way of thinking, learning and knowing than in most other disciplines. Scientific knowledge is always increasing and changing as new discoveries come to light and that gives us this dynamic subject that is always building upon the knowledge we have and changing it as we discover new evidence. The nature of science can be described as a way of observing, thinking, experimenting and validating to create a dynamic and comprehensive understanding of the natural world around us (Rutherford, Ahlgren, 1990).
The nature of science can and should be incorporated into the curriculum somehow in all classrooms from K-12. There are eight prominent aspects of the nature of science that Dr. Mumba presented in his lecture, that are all relevant when teaching science. The first is that scientific knowledge is always subject to change and is constantly changing (Mumba, F. 2016). The second is that it is empirically based, which means that it is based on observations of the natural world that are then used with reasoning and prior knowledge to come up with inferences (Mumba, F. 2016). The third aspect is it is subjective and theory driven, where not everyone agrees on every piece of knowledge or finding that has been presented to the scientific community (Mumba, F. 2016). The fourth is it is partially based on human imagination, creativity and inference (Mumba, F. 2016). This means that humans must use their inductive and deductive reasoning to come up with appropriate questions and hypotheses about our natural world that will help explain it more in depth. The fifth aspect of the nature of science that should be implemented in schools is the fact that it is socially and culturally rooted and that all scientists have a different agenda (Mumba, F. 2016). Different cultures don’t support certain science and a lot of research that happens tends to be funded by people or corporations who have their own agendas in mind.
In order to add to the comprehensive understanding we have of scientific knowledge, people observe the natural world and then create inferences about it. This is the sixth aspect of the NOS that should be embedded in science curriculum from K-12. Observations entail taking in details about the world around us using our five senses and using those details to create inferences (Mumba, F. 2016). Inferences are made from the evidence we gather in our observations and using that evidence coupled with reasoning and prior knowledge to come up with some sort of conclusion. For example, we might observe that when a fan is plugged into a wall and the button is turned on that the fan starts to spin. Based on our observations and prior knowledge, we can infer that it is an electrical current that it passing through wires in the wall that is making the fan spin. This pertains to the nature of science in the sense that we need scientific knowledge and the process of scientific thinking combined in order to exhibit the nature of science, as Dr. Mumba stated in his class on the nature of Science.
When something is observable, then scientists can agree that it is a fact and facts are the framework for scientific laws and theories. The seventh notion of the NOS is that scientific laws and theories are not the same thing (Mumba, F. 2016). A scientific law describes the relationship between things found in our natural world and always has the same outcome when put to use in the same conditions. While laws can change as new evidence comes to light, their basis is usually something that can be easily observed to explain why things occur (Mumba, F. 2016). A scientific theory is a generalized explanation that can’t necessarily be proven right or wrong. Theories are used to infer why things occur, or have occurred, in nature and are used to predict future outcomes (Mumba, F. 2016). An example of this is the theory of evolution. We have many pieces of evidence pointing to the fact that this theory is true, like fossil records, but there is no way to prove that it is true because a single human doesn’t live long enough to observe the evolutionary process first hand. Like scientific laws, scientific theories are also subject to change and that is the eighth aspect of the NOS that should be presented to grade school students.
It is important to teach all of these philosophies that are encompassed in the nature of science, because they all show how subjective yet dynamic the science disciplines are. The nature of science suggests that the students need to question everything and encourages them to be very in tuned to and make observations about the natural world around them. If only facts were taught in schools, this would create generations of students who are content with the amount of knowledge known and there would be no more progress in the science realm. The fact that all laws and theories are tentative will foster a need to explore and will therefore help cultivate the scientists who will further our knowledge of the natural world around us.