The work presented here represents a preliminary attempt to address the role of teachers in supporting students' learning on socio-scientific issues (SSI) by characterising pre-service biology teachers' perceptions and adaptation of curriculum and identifying factors that serve to mediate this process. A hundred and two undergraduate pre-service…

Applied Science/Technology is an effort to offer training in the sciences in an applications format that is accessible to most students. It uses concrete experiences to develop abstract skills, serves varied learning styles, and offers flexible career paths. (JOW)

Comments on the responses to the original article in this journal issue concerning universalism and multiculturalism. Indigenous science offers important scientific knowledge that western modern science has not yet learned to produce. (SAH)

Provides a tentative framework for a new science curriculum. Draws on the work of John Dewey in stating that the principal task of public education, including science education, is the strengthening of democratic practice. Suggests a move away from curriculum wish lists and towards consensus documents such as the Benchmarks for Science Literacy…

Provides an account of the steps taken by a school district in forming a cohesive science curriculum that embodies a standards-based approach. (DDR)

Explores aspects of multicultural science and pedagogy and describes a rich and well-documented branch of indigenous science known to biologists and ecologists as traditional ecological knowledge. (Author/SAH)

Summarizes the case for a universalist approach to science education. Examines the weaknesses of universalism within the limits of human cognitive capabilities in constraining what we understand about nature, a description of reality as a flux, and the disunity of science and the role of culturally different forms and social organization of…

Examines the definition of science put forward from multicultural perspectives in contrast to the universalist perspective of science. Argues that good science explanations will always be universal, even if indigenous knowledge is incorporated as scientific knowledge. (Author/SAH)

Describes the division of universalists and multiculturalists over the question of the nature of science. Universalists maintain that science has a universal essence and western modern science is the paradigm example of such science. Multiculturalists appeal to the disunity of science thesis to undermine the view that all sciences must have a…

Responds to three articles from this issue on universalists versus multiculturalists. Explores the idea of an effective teacher as a culture broker. (SAH)

Describes science in the Venezuelan school system which reflects on the process of development followed to design and validate the Biology Study Programs (BSP) with the emphasis on the relevance of curricular changes proposed in biological science for secondary education. (Contains 19 references.) (ASK)

Describes the assessment of providing science education for the 16-19 age group. Also discusses the use of computer printers in science teaching and the Nuffield 11 to 13 science scheme. (JN)

The part played by the British Council and the center for Curriculum Renewal and Educational Development Overseas (CREDO) in the introduction of Nuffield 'O' Level science teaching methods into the schools of Western Nigeria is discussed. (CK)

Describes "learnscape" projects which are places that a learning program has been designed to permit users to interact with the environment. Explores teachers' perceptions of the nature, value, and effects of learnscapes on teaching and learning. (Author/MM)

This article described some of the recent curriculum projects in integrated science developed in the United Kingdom, which now make it theoretically possible for a secondary school student to study a form of integrated science each year throughout the seven year period he is at school. (Author/RK)