Co-design is an increasingly common process for curriculum development in science education, where teachers and researchers work together to create curricula, drawing on mutual knowledge and expertise. In efforts to understand this process, I looked at design dilemmas that occurred during design meetings and categorized the ideas that emerged in…

Mark Van Doren, the noted literary scholar, once remarked, "The college is meaningless without a curriculum, but it is more so when it has one that is meaningless." Many current critics of undergraduate curricula in America assent to the crucial need for programmatic renewal in our colleges and universities. They bemoan the cookie-cutter…

This study first offers a defence of the view that natural science has transcultural intellectual characteristics relevant to its educational purposes and examines those characteristics under their ontic, epistemic, and value-related aspects. While the epistemic domain has been most prominent in relation to the science curriculum and its reform,…

Although the natural sciences are dedicated to understanding the natural world, they are also dynamic and shaped by cultural values. The sciences and attendant technologies could be very responsive to a population that participates in and uses them responsibly. In this essay, Nancy Brickhouse and Julie Kittleson argue for re-visioning the sciences…

The author proposes that science curriculums be altered from teaching specialized subject matter and that more time be devoted to applying the disciplines to practical problems as well as imparting competencies in inquiry and values and attitudes concerning evidence and argument, certainty and uncertainty. (BR)

Discusses the relevance of Social Biology's inclusion in the high school curriculum as being able to make a significant contribution to the development of the individual's intellectual skills and to the development of a social, political and moral man. (BR)

The main objective of this study was to design an instrument to assess the value preferences of college non-science majors with respect to certain aspects of environmental chemistry. A second objective was to obtain measures of the value preferences of various groups of non-science majors who had completed some chemistry courses. The early…

Discusses the apparent dualities characterizing science which students should be helped to recognize and which teachers should recognize and apply to their science curriculum. (LS)

Discusses the need for K-12 energy education models that are interdisciplinary, relevant, value-oriented, and future-oriented. (MA)

Cites examples from medical research, medical ethics and genetic counseling to point for the need of a secondary school course in values clarification in bioethics. (CP)

In June, 1980, 38 secondary school science teachers and 10 specialists met at Phillips Exeter Academy to discuss the state of science education. Conference participants agreed that a crisis in science education exists. Events appear to indicate that the public is telling science teachers that what they are offering in the name of science education…

Examines approaches to science teaching in a multiethnic context as well as contradictions to present models. Seeks to define the parameters of an antiracist approach to science teaching and provides ideas and a list of useful resources for classroom teachers. (DDR)

Puts forth and develops arguments for new perspectives in teaching science and suggests an interdisciplinary approach to curriculum which focuses on human values and social dilemmas. (BR)

Described is the BSCS Center for Education in Human and Medical Genetics, established to design, develop, and evaluate an instructional module in human genetics for high school students. This module will be a self-contained curricular program and will provide individualized open-ended experiences which present basic genetics content in the context…

In this article, the author describes a model for environmental education curriculum development in the public schools based on a decision-making approach. Included in the curriculum content are problems concerning the methods of science, technology, and morality, all being considered as an integral part of environmental education. (MA)