Good Science Results in Understanding and Action By Robert Yager, Ph.D.

Too many people think science in schools is an academic course where content is included only in textbooks, where workbooks, lab outlines, and frequent quizzes and tests are designed to see what was learned—or really just remembered.

But science is so much more. It is wondering, questioning, and thinking about the universe and the world where we humans find ourselves. This is something everyone does—often without thinking it is science. And, it doesn’t have to be just science. It could result in many other human endeavors like art, music, and religious reflections—or nothing at all. To be science, however, the questions must move to deeper thinking, especially related to proposing answers and explanations.

This curiosity and making sense about things around us is what people other than scientists do, too. The unique part of science is the necessity of questioning more about the “personally constructed” explanations by taking on the challenge of collecting evidence to validate them. But science, unlike other human disciplines, is a social enterprise.

The evidence presented to validate explanations must be accepted by others—unlike musicians, artists, and religious leaders where there is no requirement that others must agree with the accuracy of the interpretations. To be science, explanations must stand to the scrutinizing of others, especially leaders who have advanced explanations and who are considered experts in given fields.

Education can be a science, but it is far more often like art and religion, disciplines where all are to see the beauty and believe what others have proclaimed or envisioned. To be science, evidence must be massed for others to scrutinize and decide if it is adequate to accept and internalize.

Good science results in understanding and action—actions that result in community benefits. There are hundreds of stories of such science teaching, where the context is more important than the content identified as information to present—to see who accepts, repeats, and remembers it.

One of my favorites was a chemistry teacher in Denison, Iowa, who agreed to teach an applied course to a group of non-college types (mostly would-be hair dressers). He turned the class over to students for ideas of what to study and how to manage the course. After some discussion, the group zeroed in on the ozone.

The teacher was surprised that the students were even aware of the word, but gave it a try. The class never got off ozone. Almost every part of the standard text was useful when students wondered about such terms as pH, acid, molecule, reactions, atom solution, even the periodic table.

The students went as concerned citizens and experts to elementary school classrooms, service clubs, scouts, and other groups to get them involved with problem resolutions. They even got the mayor to declare ozone Depletion Day in Denison.

The study ended with the college-prep students asking why the applied group got to have so much fun and attract attention while they worried about the next test.

Too often science is seen as only useful as K-through-Ph.D.-level academic preparation. We need to remember that science instruction is more interesting to students when there are real world contexts that provide a need to know.

Too often typical science classrooms are places where too much time is spent with textbooks, and too little time is spent dealing with real and community-based issues. Good science is connecting content to personal, local, and current context.