A C&EIM Education Feature
C haos in scienc teaching M
Dr. Conrad E. Ronneberg
uch publicity has been given to announcements that full-time first-year graduate student 'enrollments in chemistry are decreasing. To those familiar with the changes in science education during the past decade, both undergraduate and secondary school, this isn't surprising. Although William F. Kieffer, editor of the Journal of Chemical Education, observed in 1966 that "we might expect that one of the consequences of the widespread use of CBA and CHEMS would be to arouse even more interest in chemistry as a career," these courses and other curricular attempts to improve elementary science courses in effect have actually alienated many students from science. Dr. Paul Saltman notes that "It is actually appalling to see the textbooks that are widely used in this country and abroad to communicate to young minds thirsting to know and understand. Far too often, authors of textbooks fail to grasp the meaning of science." Dael Wolfle, executive officer of American Association for the Advancement of Science, has also been critical of the new science course materials. Others, too, have been critical. So, to many people familiar
M
Dr. Conrad E. Ronneberg is professor of chemistry and chairman of physical science, emeritus, at Denison University, Granville, Ohio, and a past consultant and program director for secondary school science education at NSF. Dr. Ronneberg's chief interests in chemistry have been solutions of electrolytes, microcalorimetry, nuclear changes, and science education. He has wi'itten a number of books and contributed to numerous journals during his 50-year career in chemistry. Dr. Ronneberg was born in Waterville, Minn., in 1893. He received his B.A. from Lawrence College and his M.S. from MIT. He went on to the University of Chicago where he received
50 C&EN JUNE 1, 1970
his Ph.D. in physical chemistry under Prof. Thomas F. Young in 1935. He has been on the faculties of MIT, Itasca Junior College, Chicago City College, and St. Louis University; he joined Denison University in 1946, after serving in the U.S. Army Chemical Corps. He is a member of Sigma Xi, a recipient of a public service award of the Federal Government, a fellow of A AAS, New York Academy of Sciences, and Ohio Academy of Sciences, and is an honorary life vice chairman, examinations committee, ACS Division of Chemical Education. He has served as chairman of the ACS Board of Directors Committee on Civil Defense.
with the situation in teaching introductory science courses, both in high school and college, the situation is utter chaos. The 1940's To place attempts to improve science teaching in proper perspective requires a brief review of the progress of science teaching since World War II. The prestige of science as a human activity increased enormously during World War II. Science contributed in a large way to bringing victory to the United States and her allies by making many contributions as diverse and far-reaching as the large-scale production of penicillin, the proximity fuse, and the use of nuclear energy, which made possible the atomic bomb. After the war the distinguished scientist, educator, and public servant James Bryant Conant warned the nation: "We need a widespreading understanding of science in this country for only thus can science be assimilated into our secular cultural pattern. . . ." Historically science has long been an accepted part of all academic curriculums. Many generations of citizens have had courses in general science, biology, chemistry, and physics,
but the results are appalling. The average citizen is illiterate in science. This lack of understanding of science exists in spite of the fact that all citizens have been exposed to something called "science" in elementary and secondary school or college. Science is still a mystery to most citizens, and yet they will usually admit that it pervades all social, economic, governmental, religious, and intellectual thought today. The term science often needs clarification. It may connote: •· Information and codified knowledge of some part of the natural world, as when referring to biology, geology, or chemistry. • The methodology and philosophy of scientific procedures—the scientific method. • The important conceptual schemes of science, such as the atomic theory, the first and second laws of thermodynamics, or the cell concept in biology. Nearly all teaching of elementary science is at the level of imparting codified information within a single science such as biology, chemistry, or physics. The presentation often follows the historical development of these single science areas. For the general student as he matures, however, this proves to be an ill-placed emphasis. There is not time enough in a total curriculum program to study all the single science disciplines. The student too often never learns about scientia—science at its second and third levels. As the famous mathematician and philosopher Arthur North Whitehead pointed out "the study of a subject [science] is not so much to produce knowledge as to form habits." What are these habits? The habit of formulating the nature of any problem confronting an individual or society, the habit of scientific analysis, of seeking causes and of classifying similarities, the habit of observation or experimentation with suitable controls and the wedding of thought to observation and action, the testing of hypotheses for solutions, the acceptance of successful working theories, which are always subject to modification, rejection, or improvement. To acquire these habits requires teaching at the level of scientia—using the methodology and conceptual schemes of science. These are aspects of the spirit of science. When looking at the many triumphs of the methodology of science, we should not overlook the fact that world societies have come face to face with many crucial problems that are the direct result of scientific developments and modern technology. The world population explosion,
worldwide food shortage, especially of proteins, the problems of urbanization and poverty, the pollution of air and water supplies, the pros and cons of the proposed Safeguard ABM systems, and the like are but a few examples. The applications of scientia often depend on priorities established by man or society and the amount of financial support that is provided to support the needed research and development. Scientia can move into problem areas when called upon, confident that the spirit of science can and will prevail. Solutions eventually will be found if man will discipline himself and establish the necessary priorities and provide the necessary financial support. NSFs
role
The National Science Foundation, established by Congress in 1950, has played and does play an important role in science education in this country. The funds allotted to NSF in its early days were very modest. This was true until 1957 when the Soviets orbited the first artificial satellites—Sputniks I and II. Our nation was taken by surprise, and we were greatly chagrined; our first satellite was still on the ground. Suddenly the size and merit of our programs of research and development and the rate of production of scientists became matters of great national concern. This concern is shown by the skyrocketing of the NSF budgets from $3.5 million in 1950 to $159 million in 1961 and to $435.7 million in 1969 —a slight decrease from 1967's $465 million. A large fraction of this amount—92.5% in 1969—was used to improve and advance basic research and education in the sciences ($106.5 million specifically earmarked for science education). The amount for science education in 1969 was about $17 million less than in 1967, reflecting a change in policy within NSF in supporting programs in science education. The education of youth has become "big business." Nearly 60 million Americans are engaged full-time in education as students, teachers, or administrators. The U.S. Bureau of Census projects that in 1970 36.4 million students will be enrolled in elementary schools, about 14.8 million in secondary schools, and 7.1 million in colleges and universities. Our gross national product (GNP) for 1968 was about $860.8 billion. The cost of our educational program was about $54.6 billion, or 6.3% of. GNP. Nearly a fourth of our youth is in secondary schools. Obviously the nature of the curriculum is a matter of great concern. Two prime objecJUNE 1, 1970 C&EN
51
tives guide the building of curriculums. One is to increase individual rational power—to acquire the ability and the will to think logically. Another is to produce knowledge, attitudes, and motivations useful to the individual and to society. The many additions to knowledge from research projects largely supported by NSF in the social sciences, biological and medical sciences, mathematical and physical sciences, environmental sciences, and engineering sciences, to mention only a few areas of research and scientific education, are widely acknowledged to be pacesetting for our country. The work of all the recently selected American Nobel Laureates, for example, came to fruition with the help of financial support from NSF. Relatively large sums have also been expended to carry out programs to improve the course content of high school texts in physics, chemistry, biology, and mathematics. The first large-scale effort to improve course content was sparked by Prof. J. R. Zacharias of MIT. He had hoped to combine the teaching of chemistry and physics. The chemistry profession, however, wasn't ready in 1959 to respond to his effort. Hence the first modernization efforts were limited to physics. This was a spectacular effort supported by large grants from NSF. This started a chain reaction to provide new approaches for chemistry, mathematics, biology, and some other sciences. NSF has supported these efforts in a massive way, which is indicative of NSF's sense of urgency to modernize elementary science courses. During the 1959-66 period NSF provided BSCS biology with $6.6 million to improve course content; CBA chemistry with $1.2 million; CHEM Study chemistry with $3.3 million; and PSSC physics with $1 million. First-generation
texts
Texts that have resulted from work funded by NSF have been collectively referred to as the first-generation NSF-sponsored texts. They were the result largely of the group efforts of single-discipline science specialists and enthusiasts experimenting in curriculum building. The staff that produced the first NSF-sponsored chemistry texts, for example, was composed of specialists in chemistry with no help or guidance from physicists, science educators, historians and philosophers of science, or social scientists. The planning for these texts was narrowly conceived and executed. It is unfortunate in terms of needed changes in science texts that these NSF-sponsored texts carried such a presumed aura of excellence that they 52
C & E N J U N E 1 , 1970
have tended to set the pattern for other science texts. B. C. Smart, J. Price, and R. L. Barett, the authors of the recent text "Chemistry—a Modern Course," for example, claim that their text "reflects the consensus of recent recommendations, made by committees studying the chemistry curriculum." The result is a text of 566 pages of which 511 pages are devoted to a didactic presentation of "modern principles of chemistry." The study of the elements, which I think should be a prominent part of chemistry texts, is covered in an appendix of 26 pages. There is no pretense to treat such topics as the atmosphere, photosynthesis, fuels, foods, textiles, water, public water supplies, or the common metals and nonmetals. To the writers of this text, chemistry is an array of "proven theories." This claim, I think, reveals a gross misunderstanding of the true nature of scientific methodology. The inadequacies of the first-generation science texts have been clearly recognized: • They were written to conform to the ideas and needs of single science enthusiasts—chemistry for chemists, physics for physicists, biology for biologists. • They ignore the interdisciplinary approaches called for today. The new texts stress the far-out fringe research developments in single disciplines. Thus CBA chemistry was a large-scale effort planned by "expert scientists." The texts reveal largely the intellectual interests of chemists. Possible suggestions by competent science educators were never welcomed. The treatment in this large text is largely didactic and much beyond the experience of high school youngsters. Not until page 720 in a volume of 756 pages is there any discussion of the atmosphere, hydrogen, oxygen, or water. Even photosynthesis is not mentioned. One looks in vain for some discussion on metals, fuels, food, tex-
tiles, or the chemistry of the human body. Likewise the new BSCS biology texts (there are three) are deficient in important aspects of biology, cytology, ecology, and organology and of our bios in general, in the opinion of some workers in the life sciences. Topics such as these are of great importance to our general students—our future adult citizens. • The courses were planned to be intellectually stimulating. This has been carried to such an extreme that the teaching materials cannot be used by 707c of the students. In addition a large fraction of high school teachers are not prepared for or interested in teaching the courses. • The courses often omit treatment of whole areas of modern science, such as a reasonably complete presentation of heat and alternating currents in the case of PSSC physics. • The courses often make no attempt to capitalize for teaching purposes the machines and devices that are such an important part of modern living of every youngster, such as household refrigerators, common car storage batteries, or ac and dc motors. • The courses are oriented in their presentation of material to students who may be presumed to become potential science majors. The needs of the general students and future citizens are largely ignored. • They are encyclopedic in content with respect to what are called fundamental principles of modern science. Most students become lost and thoroughly bored with a welter of details that have little or no bearing on their present problems of living. However important the topics may be to a professional researcher, they serve to alienate students from science. A recent revision of a first-generation chemistry text, for example, includes details on iodometry but nothing on the significance of the naturally occurring halogens or the place of the halogens and their compounds in the
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public health services or in the home. • They place the emphasis in presenting science to the beginning student on the end products of science —the so-called key principles and modem ideas of science. The presen tation is often shamefully authori tarian. The student is expected "to know" with little or no consideration of the methodology used by scientists in arriving at these end-product truths of science. I believe that any attempt to pre sent to beginners nothing but a study of "proven theories" and basic principles to the exclusion of studying nature itself is futile. It is psychologi cally unsound. I think it much sounder to start with nature as it is and by using the methodology of science arrive at a body of knowledge called science. That knowledge can then be used to interpret man and his environment. The first-generation texts and the various revised texts don't follow such a scheme. What these texts have done, in my opinion, is to add to the chaos in science teach ing. For these reasons, then, I think the new generation of science teachers will tend to ignore CHEM Study and CBA chemistry, PSSC physics, and, possibly, BSCS biology. New
direction
During the mid-1960's NSF began to move in new directions in provid ing financial support to improve in troductory science texts. It raised penetrating questions as to the effects of the first-generation texts—CBA and CHEM Study, PSSC physics, BSCS biology—and welcomed the oppor tunity to support the second-genera tion texts, which are only now be ginning to appear. There have been profound changes in NSF policy in following out its mandate from Con gress to improve science education. This has occurred especially since 1965. In that year, the new director of NSF, Dr. Leland J. Haworth, stated in his annual report, "Many people feel . . . introductory science courses are viewed as elimination contests, a method of separating the men from the boys. . . . Perhaps more thought [should] be given to presentation of subject matter in such a way as to inspire interest and to give the student a better opportunity to appreciate its deeper meaning [which] would im prove the progress of those equipped and motivated to persevere in science and would also prove useful in the more general sense to those who cannot or do not wish careers in sci ence." At that time he also stated that the then organizational structure of NSF needed to be changed. This has since occurred in an attempt to 54 C&EN JUNE 1, 1970
recognize and further the trend toward interdisciplinary approaches in science. By 1965 the feedback from the use of the first-generation texts forced NSF to reconsider its role in support ing certain aspects of the changes in science education. During 1965 under the chairmanship of Rep. Emilio Q. Daddario (D.-Conn.) the Sub committee on Science, Research and Development of the House of Repre sentatives intensively studied the role of NSF. There was agreement that on the whole NSF had performed its functions well, but changing times re quired some changes. The needed changes included greater emphasis on the social sciences and greater aware ness of pressing national needs that require integrated, interdisciplinary experimental responses. For these reasons NSF now supports secondgeneration texts and welcomes co operation with other agencies con cerned with the impacts of science on society, such as the U.S. Office of Education. The principal aim of the secondgeneration texts is to actively serve the very large fraction of high school students now shunning elementary science courses as well as the po tential science major. An example of a second-generation introductory sci ence text is Harvard Project Physics. This resulted from a conference sup ported by NSF in 1963 devoted to needed changes in teaching high school physics. The project involved the cooperative efforts of persons with expertise in many fields—physics, chemistry, history and philosophy of science, and science education. The response of science in providing for the changing needs of our culture, our economy, our defense, and in pioneering the researches for solving the problems of our environment, in creasing our food supplies both as to quality and quantity, vastly improving the quality of science education, and the spreading of science education to much greater numbers requires an interdisciplinary response. It is noteworthy that the Nixon Administration, although determined to reduce the national budget, has ac tually increased NSF funds to give support for interdisciplinary projects. This was done partly at the expense of its former traditional method of support for education. At the same time it considerably increased funds for new projects in education. There is an item of more than $1.7 billion for the U.S. Office of Education for im proving elementary and secondary education. This should provide in creased support for the development of second-generation science courses to meet both the needs of students motivated toward science and the gen
eral student, especially that large frac tion of students and future citizens now largely avoiding science courses. The success of Harvard Project Physics is reassuring in this respect. This project was and still is supported by both NSF and the U.S. Office of Education as well as other agencies. It is adequate and challenging to po tential science majors and to the much larger group of students who have not been taking physics. The reception by teachers and students has been very favorable. Societal changes, including educa tional policies and curriculums, usually take place slowly. Hopefully the needed changes in improving other introductory science courses will now be accelerated by the increased funds to NSF and to the U.S. Office of Education. In January Congress passed the greater responsibility for improvement of elementary and sec ondary education to the U.S. Office of Education within HEW. Hope fully NSF and OE will move forward together to produce more of the greatly needed second-generation in troductory science texts. OE is also committed to institute new programs to train science teachers, and funds have been earmarked for this purpose.
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