Chemical Education Today
Letters Implementing “How Science Works” The national government of England and Wales is attempting to solve some of the problems highlighted in a recent editorial in this Journal on high school chemistry (1). The new component, “How Science Works: The Thinking behind the Doing”, has been incorporated in the specifications of science teaching for the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) schemes introduced from September 2006 (for pupils aged 14–16) and the follow-up GCE Advanced Subsidiary (AS) and Advanced (A) level (ages 16–18) from Sep 2008. Universities are autonomous bodies, although they will probably follow suit by introducing modules on history and philosophy of science enforced by “demand pull” of undergraduates choosing university chemistry departments that also offer How Science Works. The aim is to produce more scientifically literate non-scientists, more flexibly minded scientists and technologists, as well as scientists and technologists well trained in their fields. It is unlikely that state or federal legislatures will choose to intervene in this way in the United States. However, if enough support could be generated in the American Chemical Society to encourage the College Entrance Examination Board to introduce such topics in its advanced placement examinations, a start would be made. The problem situation was succinctly summarized by the well-known American philosopher of science, Thomas S. Kuhn, in his book The Essential Tension (2). The objective of a textbook is to provide the reader, in the most economical and easily assimilable form, with a statement of what the contemporary community believes it knows and of the principal uses to which that knowledge is put. Information about how that knowledge was acquired (discovery) and about why it was accepted by the profession (confirmation) would at best be excess baggage. Though including that information would almost certainly increase the “humanistic” values of the text and might conceivably breed more flexible and creative scientists, it would inevitably detract from the ease of learning the contemporary scientific language. To date only the last objective has been taken seriously by most writers of textbooks in the natural sciences.
Information about this UK effort, How Science Works: The Thinking behind the Doing, is available online (3–5). • The Assessment and Qualifications Alliance (AQA) is the largest of the three English exam boards. See chapter 10 (pp 27–32) of their document, General Certificate of Secondary Education, Chemistry 2008, for a statement of the procedural content that high school students need to know and understand to successfully pass the assessments of the chemistry specification (3). • The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) reports the specifications established for teaching and learning science at the AS and A Levels in their document: GCE AS and A Level Subject Criteria for Science (QCA/06/2864). See paragraph 3.6 (p 4) for requirements from How Science Works (4). • Anthony Greener is chairman of the QCA: his essay, Moving towards a Modernised Curriculum, summarizes the national government’s philosophy (5).
Interested readers can also see refs 6 and 7 for some of my own contributions published on this topic. Literature Cited 1. Moore, J. W. J. Chem. Educ. 2006, 83, 1575. 2. Kuhn, T. S. The Essential Tension: Selected Studies in Scientific Tradition and Change; University of Chicago Press: Chicago, IL, 1977; p 186. 3. General Certificate of Secondary Education, Chemistry 2008 Web Page. http://www.aqa.org.uk/qual/pdf/AQA-4421-W-SP08.pdf (accessed Feb 2007). 4. GCE AS and A Level Subject Criteria for Science Web Page. http://www.qca.org.uk/downloads/qca-06-2864_science.pdf (accessed Feb 2007). 5. Moving towards a Modernised Curriculum Web Page. http:// www.qca.org.uk/downloads/11473_greener_moving_towards _modernised_curr.pdf (accessed Feb 2007). 6. Akeroyd, M. Chemistry in Britain 2002, April, 22. 7. Akeroyd, M. J. Chem. Educ. 1983, 60, 559–560. Michael Akeroyd Secretary, International Society for the Philosophy of Chemistry Bradford College, BD7 1AY, United Kingdom
[email protected] About Letters Letters may be submitted to the editorial office by regular mail: Journal of Chemical Education, 209 N. Brooks Street, Madison, WI 53715-1116; by fax: 608/262-7145; or by email:
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Vol. 84 No. 5 May 2007
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Journal of Chemical Education
767
