Why Teach Science Concepts Through Inquiry and Investigation?
Karin K. Hess, Editor, Science Exemplars If you were “taught” science the way I was taught back in elementary school, you probably experienced what I fondly refer to now as “language arts science.” Language arts science is when you read and discuss scientific ideas, look at pictures of scientists working in labs, memorize definitions of science terms, and then get tested to see what you know. If you are a good memorizer/reader/listener, then you actually appear to understand science. Unfortunately, many of us who “learned” science in this way, eventually discovered that we really did not understand the underlying science concepts. We soon questioned, “How were we going to be effective teachers of elementary and middle school science if we taught our units of study in the same way we were taught?” Let’s fast forward now to the 90s. Nationally, states and schools were given the charge to articulate their standards for student performance, and to define WHAT body of knowledge students sho
Related Questions
- How will teachers ever get the time to teach about the Environmental Principles and Concepts, when they have such limited time to teach what is already required?
- What makes this inquiry different from the investigation that the Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) is conducting?
- Who could teach Indian children financial concepts better than a bank?
