Science Education II: Scientific Literacy and the Karplus Taxonomy

Science Education II: Scientific Literacy and the Karplus TaxonomyAuthor(s): Victor L. PollakSource: Journal of Science Education and Technology, Vol. 3, No. 2 (Jun., 1994), pp. 89-97Published by: SpringerStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40188470 .

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Science Education II: Scientific Literacy and the Karplus Taxonomy1

Victor L. Pollak

In this essay we explore the role played by the conceptual structure of science in scientific literacy. It is shown that the taxonomy of scientific concepts elucidated by Karplus is a basic structural characteristic of science, and provides a natural means for engaging, as dis- tinct from merely "learning," scientific content. Special attention is given to the idea "scientific model" as being fundamental to the discipline and therefore essential to scientific

literacy. The relationship between scientific models and common misconceptions is devel-

oped KEY WORDS: Science education; physics education; scientific literacy; scientific models; conceptual structure of science; science misconceptions.

Journal of Science Education and Technology, Vol. 3, No. 2, 1994

In the first of these articles (Pollak, 1993) I alluded to the ongoing discussion about the dismal state of education in general, of science education in particular, and to the related question of public scientific literacy. At the level of the standard news- paper editorial - usually triggered by some recent statistic - the discussion proceeds somewhat as fol- lows: It is pointed out that we live in a highly tech- nological age, and that in order for the nation to develop intelligent policies in areas such as environ- mental protection, nuclear power, genetic engineer- ing, weapons development, etc., there needs to be much wider public understanding of science and technology. Since the improvement of public scientific literacy is generally assumed to be the respon- sibility of the schools, it is argued that young people should take more science in school, thus deepening and broadening their knowledge. In any case, there certainly needs to be more time devoted to science because of the knowledge explosion." Eventually

questions are raised about what parts of present schooling might have to be cut back to create more time for science, and why that may not be such a

good idea. In the past these discussions were sometimes followed by programs of curriculum reform, both local and national, but from the standpoint of results, the ensuing changes proved temporary or in- effectual.

All knowledge presents itself within a conceptual framework adapted to account for previous experience. - Niels Bohr

CONTENT OR CONTEXT AS BASIS FOR SCIENTIFIC LITERACY?

Judging by current practice, our educational system seems to be stuck in the point of view that scientific literacy consists of "having" a diversity of scientific knowledge. Look at science curricula and how they are organized. Look at people's complaints about curriculum. Look at science textbooks, and the view that a major problem is that there is not enough time to cover all the important "modern" subject matter.

What I propose here is that scientific literacy is not fundamentally related to knowing or understanding any particular scientific content. What I

*Based on the second of two talks given at the Paedagogische Hochschule, Ludwigsburg, Germany, in November 1988.

department of Physics, University of North Carolina at Char-

lotte, Charlotte, North Carolina.

3Correspondence should be directed to Victor L. Pollak, Depart- ment of Physics, UNCC Station, Charlotte, North Carolina 28223.

89

1059-O145/94A>6OO-O089$07.00/0 O 1994 Plenum Publishing Corporation



90 Pollak

suggest is that scientific literacy should be regarded as a context within which to assimilate, hold, under- stand, and correlate scientific knowledge or content.

Now I do not say that for scientific literacy, knowing science content is unimportant. What I say is that content is not fundamentally important. What I assert is that functional understanding of content

only becomes possible in a context, and that it is appropriate to identify this context as being the es- sence of scientific literacy.

So I want to explore the questions: what are some essential ingredients of the context of scientific

literacy, and what does it mean to be operating in such a context? Without clarity about this there is no philosophical basis for curriculum or evaluation.

Clearly these are broad questions, and in the

previous discussion (Pollak, 1993) I have put forward the case for designing curriculum to be consistent with the spirit of science and with how science is prac- ticed as a discipline. Since the problems of science education are inescapably embedded in the problems of education in general, it is not surprising that much of the previous discussion transcended science and

applied to education in general. What I want to dis- cuss here are aspects specific to science and scientific

literacy. We begin by recognizing that every discipline

has certain organizing concepts and ways of thinking that are characteristic of that discipline. Those who have been practitioners of the discipline for any length of time function without conscious awareness of these underlying concepts and modes of thought. Embedded in the language of the discipline, they are the givens that have become part of the "back- ground of obviousness" of the disciplinary subcul- ture. / suggest that a basic function of education is to disseminate these organizing concepts and modes of thinking into the general culture and that in science this is an essential part of what we mean by "developing scientific literacy"

In exploring this I will be speaking from the perspective of a physicist, and my examples will come from physical science. However, there is no difficulty in applying the ideas to other areas.

So I suggest that a basic part of scientific literacy is a conceptual framework within which science content can be held, organized, and understood. Let me give a concrete example. If you ask a chemist or a physicist whether a scientifically literate person ought to know that matter is made up of atoms and molecules, he or she would probably say yes, that is

pretty basic and important. What I say is yes, it is

important, and no, it is not fundamentally important. I suggest that what is fundamentally important in re- lation to the content "matter is made up of atoms and molecules" is a concept: the concept "scientific model." If students do not have a working under-

standing of the idea of scientific model, if that is not

part of their conceptual framework, if they have not

experienced inventing and critiquing models, it may not be very useful to teach them the informational content "atoms and molecules." It is the idea "scientific model" that provides the context within which to explore the subject matter "atoms and molecules" as science rather than as informational content.4 What is fundamental to scientific literacy is not which

particular models people know about but that they have a functional understanding of the idea "scientific model." By functional I do not mean just having had the concept explained to them. I mean the ex-

perience and demonstrated ability to create, critique, give evidence for and against, modify, decide among, abandon, and so on.

In fact I would venture that by the time teachers get to the topic atoms and molecules in the curriculum, most of their pupils will already know about atoms. You ask them and they say, "Oh sure every- body knows about that. We know that." Then when

you ask them how they know, and what evidence

they can point to to support the idea, they say that

they know it from school or from television or from some other authority, and they cannot think of any evidence. They know it as gossip.5 "Guess what I heard in school the other day. Everything is made

up of these tiny little things called atoms and molecules." "Oh, yeah? Isn't that interesting. What else have you heard?"

I once visited a 6th grade class that was learning about atoms and molecules, and asked the class that question about evidence. First there was a long silence, and then finally a girl raised her hand and said, "When you boil water it turns into steam, and that's evidence." Not bad! There was real engagement there. Water into steam is certainly consistent with the molecular model of matter. It is also consistent with a continuous (infinitely divisible) model,

^he distinction between "science" and "natural history'* would be useful here, but this distinction seems to have disappeared from the language - no doubt thereby to elevate the status of what was once considered to be "natural history." Eric Rogers, the great Princeton physics teacher, used to refer to knowledge that is merely remembered and believed as "gossip."



Science Education II 91

but I could not get into that with them because I knew that those children had not been introduced to the game that professional scientists play called

"creating and shooting down models." We do not

usually let them in on the game of ''being" a scientist. We only tell them how the game turned out, and then we are disappointed that in the end we do not get many competent players!

One can even argue that it may be harmful to

give children content in the having mode.6 The harm comes when they are deceived into thinking they have

actually acquired some science competence. I am sometimes asked to serve as a judge at a science fair. One time there was a 6th grader who had grown plants inside and outside of pyramid-shaped enclo- sures to "prove" that the pyramid shapes made plants grow better. There was no indication of any attempt to identify and control other variables. I suspect that this pupil had never been systematically introduced to the concept 'Variables." He certainly showed no functional understanding. There were other examples in which unsound experiments were used uncritically to confirm some principle, and the pupils involved did not demonstrate the connection. They start with a

principle they "know" about - as a kind of artificial "school knowledge"; then they do an experiment, and no matter how it turns out they say it "proves" the

principle. Sometimes they even get the principle wrong. No matter. The results still prove it. They deny their experience. Their experience is determined by their beliefs, rather than the other way around - a

syndrome reminiscent of the Middle Ages. I felt sorry for some of those children. Many of them had put in a lot of work and had it backwards about how science

works, and apparently adults somewhere were sup- porting them in these ideas.

It is not that transmitting informational content is bad or harmful per se. For example, we should

certainly encourage children's interest in popular science programs like "Nova," or "Cosmos," or "Na- tional Geographic." Such productions provide beautiful factual presentations of subject matter, and the viewer's interest is supported by the grand scope and manner of presentation. However, similar content presented in a classroom setting does not gen- erate much interest in and of itself. The source of interest in the classroom is personal engagement with

content, and the process of relating content and ex-

perience to the conceptual framework of science is an important means of providing for such engagement.

We begin with the hypothesis that any subject can be

taught effectively in some intellectually honest form to any child at any stage of development. It is a bold

hypothesis and an essential one in thinking about the nature of curriculum. No evidence exists to contradict it; considerable evidence is being amassed that sup- ports it. - Jerome Bniner, The Process of Education

A TAXONOMY OF SCIENTIFIC CONCEPTS

Some twenty-five years ago, Robert Karplus recognized that there exists a taxonomy of scientific concepts. He identified a category of concepts that: (1) cut across all subject matter, (2) are used per- vasively by professional scientists in their work, and (3) play a special intermediate role between the raw data of experience and the major theoretical abstractions of science. These concepts constitute a kind of conceptual infrastructure for science, and

Karplus went on to show how this conceptual infrastructure can be used as a key to developing functional understanding of science content. I have selected several important examples of these con-

cepts and classified them as shown in Table I (cf. Karplus, 1969, 1981). Let us look briefly at the items in this table:

First we have the idea of object and of material, and the idea that objects and materials have properties. The latter is the fundamental concept relating to the process of description and is also the basis for what we call "materials science."

The interaction concept is essential and pervasive. The basic forces of nature are the gravita- tional, electromagnetic, and nuclear interactions. The idea of interaction-at-a-distance underlies the more sophisticated concept of force field.

The idea of systems and subsystems is used in all areas of science, including the social sciences.

Table I. Conceptual Infrastructure for Physical Science

Physical universe Description Interpretation

Object Property Interaction

Material Variable Scientific model

System/subsystem Relativity Evidence

Reference frame *The distinctions "having mode'* and "being mode" of learning

are discussed in Fromm (1976), and in the first of these two articles (Pollak, 1993).



92 Pollak

In physics it underlies abstractions such as conser- vation laws, open and closed systems in thermody- namics, free-body diagrams in mechanics, equivalent circuits in electricity, etc.

Like the systems concept, identification and control of variables is also pervasive in science and other areas: dependent and independent variables, controlled and uncontrolled variables, the idea of isolating the effect of one variable by holding others fixed, etc.

relativity is the underlying idea for measure- ment and for distinguishing what is intrinsic to a system and what depends on the frame of reference from which we are looking.

I have already touched on the idea of scientific model, a concept that is also widely used in other disciplines. The ability to create working models, analog models, and mathematical models; the idea of choosing among competing models on the basis of inclusiveness and simplicity; the realization that the way we make progress in science is to explore the limitations of our models; the idea that one can provide evidence for a model but never "prove" that a model is right - these are all ideas and processes basic to scientific work.

As mentioned previously, the above are examples of a relatively small number of essential concepts that play a special intermediate role between the raw data of experience and the major theoretical abstractions of science. I call them "contextual concepts" in that they provide a framework or context that per- mits us to organize experience in a meaningful way. That this category of concepts can play a crucial role in science education was recognized and explicitly ar- ticulated by Karplus and Thier. They write (Karplus and Thier, 1967, p. 24, emphasis added):

. . .the early years of school should provide a highly diversified (science) program based heavily on concrete experiences. The difficult part which is often overlooked, is that the concrete experiences must be presented in a context that helps to build a conceptual framework for operations with abstractions. Then, and only then, will the early learning form a base for the (successful) assimilation of experiences that come later - experiences that may involve either direct observation or verbal and pictorial re- ports of observations made by others. In other words, to be able to use information obtained by others, to benefit from the reading of textbooks and other references that present information in ab- stract form, the individual must have a conceptual structure and a means of communication that en- able him to interpret the information. . .. We call

this functional understanding of scientific concepts "scientific literacy.

" // should be the principal objec- tive of the elementary school science program.

This is a key insight. Although process and attitude objectives also cut across all areas of content, they provide no structure for assimilating content. The recognition of the existence of such a conceptual framework, one not specific to any particular content area, is important in itself. What makes it a major contribution to science education is the fact that these concepts, which are used as a matter of course in the day-to-day work of professional scientists, can be functionally mastered at the elementary school level. That is really a breakthrough! That provides a major opening in moving toward scientific literacy at an early level.

Consider "properties" for example. The professional physicist might be concerned with esoteric properties of materials like "modulus of elasticity," or "dielectric constant," or "molar specific heat," The first grader might be concerned with properties of objects such as their size, shape, color, and tex- ture. Clearly it is exactly the same idea.

Furthermore, this is precisely where the professional scientist starts. When the Apollo 11 astronauts brought back the first moon rocks, there was a head- line in the paper: "Scientists' First Look Can't Tell Rock Types" (Rossiter, 1969). The article describes the comments of four PhDs as they opened the first box of moon rocks in the presence of reporters and took turns offering their observations: 'The rocks ranging from one and a half to several inches across 'were covered with some kind of cocoa gray dust with elements of brown in it.'" "The rocks appear to be angular but not sharply angular." "The rocks are soft enough to show marks of indentation, but not so soft they would fall apart when picked up." A nice example of organizing experience around the "properties" concept. The article goes on to say that the prelimi- nary visual examination of the moon rocks, still in their plastic bags, continued for more than an hour. The scientists' dialog was also interlaced with infer- ences relating the visual evidence to their fund of organized knowledge. "The fact that the rocks did not have sharply angular corners 'tends to rule out certain kinds of rocks that fracture along sharp lines, the glassy ones particularly.'" "The absence of sharp angles in the rocks does not necessarily mean they are not volcanic in origin."

As another example, consider the interaction concept and the idea of evidence. The medical sci-




entist might be concerned with the desirable or un- desirable interaction of radiation with body tissues, and with what constitutes evidence for such interaction. Even the youngest school children might be in- vited to cite evidence for the interaction of a ball with a bat, a magnet with another magnet, and so on. Table II demonstrates additional applications of the Karplus conceptual framework in both school science and in modern physics research. It is clear that these concepts are embedded in the very language of science.

For school science to be meaningful to children, they and their teachers must learn to use its conceptual points of view. The process of relating experience and content to this conceptual framework involves a creative act and is clearly consistent with the constructivist view of how understanding develops. Consider, for example, how one might use a content-oriented textbook in this domain. An assignment appropriate to a second-grade class in which the concepts "object," "interaction," and "evidence" have been introduced might look like this:

"Look in your science textbook and find twenty examples of 'interaction/ For each example, identify the interacting objects and describe evidence of interaction. See whether you can think of at least two pieces of evidence for each example."

Here we see the possibility of children going through a whole textbook for an assignment like this, searching for examples of an essential idea, and

not only picking up content along the way but crea- tively engaging content. Clearly cognitive skills come into play in this assignment, in contrast to studying the same material to acquire information. Moreover, it is likely that subordinating content in this way will result in learning more content, rather than less. I suggest the likelihood of pupils feeling excited and empowered by the discovery of the far-reaching util- ity and workability of the structuring concept, rather than feeling overwhelmed by facts and explanations in the "having mode." Engaging content in this way is divergent and creative, whereas reading for content in the "having mode" is convergent and reac- tive. Later, in relationship to some other concept, the same text material can be surveyed again and seen from a different perspective.

Building up the kind of conceptual framework described here provides a means of engaging content, and there is an experience of enhanced personal competence and power in that More generally, it is the individual's conceptual framework that provides a context within which content-oriented programs and courses become appropriate, and can be han- dled in the "being mode."

THE CENTRAL ROLE OF MODELS

As a third example, I want to return to the special role of the concept "scientific model" and its relationship to a contemporary problem. There has

Table II. Examples of Applications of Conceptual Structure Introduced by Karplus (1981) in

Physics Research and School Science

Physics research0 School science6

Properties of amorphous Ti-V thin Elastic properties of air in a syringe film alloys

Quantum effects in the interaction of Examples of interacting objects from the radiation with atoms in a cavity Sunday comics

Solutions for pseudospin equations Interacting subsystems of the human body for three-level systems

Excited states of ions: The cesium Serial ordering of a sea shells by various isoelectronic sequence properties

Variables influencing the range of a rubber band projectile

Three-level model for laser-driven Electric current model for energy transfer atom, with analytic solutions from batteries to bulbs

From Cancer to Capricorn: relative motion of the Sun in the Earth's frame of reference

flTitles from the Bulletin of the American Physical Society 31(5), 1986. ^Possible titles for school science assignments or projects.



94 Pollak

been considerable interest in recent years in detailed studies of pupil "misconceptions," or "alternative conceptions." Such studies go back at least as far as the pioneering work of Piaget A widely cited example is the not uncommon idea that the phases of the moon are due to the earth's shadow. Other examples resem- ble Aristotelian ideas. Usually what we see teachers doing to remedy such misconceptions amounts to re- placing wrong beliefs by right beliefs. Let us look at what is underneath some of these misconceptions.

I call your attention to Fig. 1. Here a researcher did Piaget-type interviews with children (grades 4-8) regarding their conceptions of the earth as a cosmic body. The drawings illustrate various categories of the children's attempts to make sense out of the to- tality of their knowledge and experience: The earth is round and Columbus (sic!) sailed around the earth; the earth is flat, except for hills and valleys; seen from space the earth is round (spaceships, pho- tography); the sun rises and sets; there is under- ground volcanic activity.

The drawings are full of misconceptions; yet we cannot help but be charmed and impressed by these thoughtful attempts by children to make sense out of the combination of their experience and of their authority-based beliefs. We recognize that these attempts reflect exactly the kind of thinking that is in keeping with the methodology and spirit of science. Referring to the original paper (Nuss- baum, 1979), we find that Figure If is a particularly

creative synthesis - "the fire deep down, underneath the ground," accounted for by the position of the sun during the night!

How should these children be straightened out on their "misconceptions"? The question is difficult

only so long as the context for handling it is missing. Suppose, however, that these children had been previously introduced to playing with scientific models.

Suppose they had already had opportunities to work with simple systems with a view toward making the idea "scientific model" a part of their conceptual framework. An example (due to Karplus) of such a

system - appropriate to the elementary grades - is shown in Fig. 2. Suppose that the game of creating and refining models - which is exactly the game we scientists play - were commonplace throughout the science curriculum. In this context our pupils would then be supported in improving and refining their

earth-as-a-cosmic-body models on the basis of additional evidence. We see that if the idea "scientific model" were part of the conceptual framework in which content learning occurs, the interpretation "misconception" would generally be replaced by the

point of view that it is perfectly natural to begin by inventing crude models, and then engage in a process of testing and refinement (cf. Resnick, 1983). Eventually, as appropriate to the educational situ- ation, the teacher can introduce a model proposed by professionals, to be similarly doubted, tested, and

Fig. 1. Conceptions (grades 4-8) of the earth as a cosmic body. (After Nussbaum, 1979, p. 88.)

Y^'^^V; ^ /• fUfc cart* ' ^^gll^i*** *-r*-" --^5$^?7

^ - JJ " ' '' "- '- - " r -r-'": -

« I I

b I I

i

d • {




Fig. 2. A mystery system, (a) When handle A is turned one revolution clockwise, handle B makes 2V2 revolutions clockwise. Make models for what is under the cover, (b) Large and small gear model, (c) Two pulley and string model. (After Karplus, 1969, p. 12.) Obviously neither of the two models is adequate. How can both model G and model S be refined to account for the observations? What additional experiments could then be used to provide evidence that would favor one of the refined models over the other?

A B

(a)

model G model S A B A B

(b) (c)

held as possibility so long as it proves to be consistent with the available evidence.

We see that the idea "misconception" is an interpretation in the narrow context of education as "learning the right model." Alter the context and you get a different interpretation. In a broader context of education for scientific literacy, I suggest that the right model held as belief is no better than the wrong model. It is necessary for students to come at the scientist's model not as "the answer," but with the same kind of critical thinking that they apply to models made up by their classmates. In fact, the pupil who gets teacher approval for "the right model"- ac- cepted on authority and held as belief- will often be cut off from meaningful progress and further learning. // is the context 'inventing models, " held with doubt, as possibility, that provides the opening both for including the children's conceptions and for the pupils to Junction as scientists.

Mark Kac (1969) has given a description that is both playful and incisive and that captures the spirit in which we should use models in science education:

Models are for the most part caricatures of real- ity, but if they are good, then, like good caricatures, they portray, though perhaps in distorted manner, some of the features of the real world.

The main role of models is not so much to ex- plain or to predict - though ultimately these are the main functions of science - as to polarize thinking and to pose sharp questions. Above all, they are fun to invent and to play with, and they have a pe- culiar life of their own. The "survival of the fittest" applies to models even more than it does to living creatures. They should not, however, be allowed to proliferate indiscriminately without real necessity or real purpose.

Unless, of course, we all follow the dic- tum. . . .that "you can blow all the bubbles you want to provided you are the one who pricks them."

The above examples demonstrate how the Kar- plus taxonomy not only provides a structure for science content, but also immediately engages the learner in the processes of science. Karplus and Thier (1967, p. 72) comment on this:

The adoption of this philosophy of and approach to science teaching makes impossible the separation of process goals from content goals, or either one from concept development. These three basic ingre-



96 Pollak

dients of the science program are completely inter- woven and intermingled. No one ingredient can be isolated from the others as a means for building the science program. When the individual child is work-

ing with systems of object in order to observe natural phenomena, he is caught up in the intricate web which is content, process, and concept development. Any attempt to separate one from the other

usually leads to sterility accompanied by a signifi- cant increase in the use of words to talk about science and a decrease in the activities which allow the individual to experience natural phenomena di-

rectly.

In science at the university level we strive to train novice college students to focus on definitions, concepts, and principles as the essential basis for problem solving. We recognize that successful problem solving utilizing these means is the only reliable test of understanding. Similarly, we need to begin to train school children - and, first and foremost, their teachers - to relate and interpret content and experience in terms of a conceptual structure that provides a framework for understanding. In both cases we are talking about discipline - the discipline of mastering a discipline.

SCIENTIFIC LITERACY AND THE "KNOWLEDGE EXPLOSION": A COMMENT AND A CAVEAT

In the introductions to these two essays I alluded to the nature of public discussion about science education and scientific literacy. Not surprisingly, such discussion usually centers on "fixes" within the prevailing (unworkable) context. Consider the state- ment that one reason we need more science in school is so that teachers and students can "keep up with the knowledge explosion."

Now it may well be that we should devote more time to science in the schools, but certainly not because of any knowledge explosion. The knowledge explosion has been going on for centuries. Ob- viously this remark is yet another example of how deeply embedded the "having mode" of thinking about education is. Beyond that, this simplistic jus- tification betrays a lack of understanding of how science develops.

It is true, of course, that at the forefront of research new information is being accumulated at an accelerating pace. However, a collection of information is not science any more than a pile of bricks is a house. As a science matures something else hap-

pens: Its conceptual structure is refined, becomes more efficient, and is capable of accommodating vastly more information. Our understanding becomes deeper because we have developed more powerful organizational principles, and it is no longer necessary to remember vast amounts of detailed information. In fact, a fundamental goal in the development of models and theories is inclusiveness - to account for more and more on the basis of the fewest and simplest fundamental ideas. A few basic principles account for most of physics. By virtue of greater so- phistication, as a science matures things become sim- pler, not more complex. Thus we see again the essential role of organizational features.

The Karplus taxonomy is such a feature. How- ever, it is important to issue a warning here: Con- ceptual interpretations and explanations are also "information." For a teacher or student - or an educational culture - that, for one reason or another, is intractably stuck in education as the transmission of information, anything and everything can (and will) be converted into more factual information. Thus we must be careful that the answers to questions like "how do we know?" and "why do we believe?" are not also simply believed, memorized, and glibly reproduced.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

In the 1960s and 1970s Robert Karplus and the Science Curriculum Improvement Study (SCIS) made a number of highly original contributions to science education, and much of the discussion herein relates to certain aspects of their work. At the time SCIS was one of many curriculum development projects, which all had acronyms- SCIS, ESS, SAPA, COPES, and so on - a real alphabet soup.

Underlying the K-6 curriculum developed by SCIS were a number of new and original insights, two of which are relevant here: First, that certain pervasive scientific concepts can be classified together as constituting a framework that cuts across all science, and second, that this framework provides an essential and workable context for assimilating scientific knowledge. However, most people saw this conceptual framework as being specific to the SCIS curriculum, rather than as being a basic structural characteristic of science itself The failure to make this distinction, together with the prejudice against anything that might look like a "national curriculum," assured that this invaluable contribution




would not be widely disseminated, or become an intrinsic part - much less a cornerstone - of science education.

Karplus and the SCIS group did much more than develop a curriculum. They developed a philosophical, psychological, methodological context for science education - not just useful in the elementary school, but applicable to science education in general. The K-6 curriculum they developed, although brilliant in and of itself, was an expression of something, and what is of fundamental importance is not the expression but the "something." Unfortunately, it appears that what most people noticed was the curriculum, which was one of many that all appeared around the same time. What most people focused on was the form rather than the substance, and it became a question of which curriculum do you "like," or which one can you afford, or whatever. So the underlying ideas - which is what is really of value - got lost in the alphabet soup.

In fact, I will venture a generalization: By the time any new curriculum filters down to the level of classroom implementation, the substantive abstractions on which the curriculum rests will have been compromised. If this is so, then it is clear that an emphasis on curriculum development projects is misplaced or at best premature. Rather, we must find the means to agree upon and bring into the cul-

ture a context for scientific literacy in which old or new curricula can take root. I suggest that without widespread clarity and agreement on such a context, even the best and most workable specifics will inevi- tably be misunderstood, misused, reduced to me- chanical rituals, ignored, abandoned, reinvented, used here and there, and lost again. Our history over the span of the last quarter century suggests that within the prevailing context, efforts focused on "more, better, and different" will do little to alter the quality of the results being produced.

REFERENCES

Fromm, E. (1976). To Have or To Be? Harper & Row, New York. Kac, M. (1969). Some mathematical models in science. Science

166: 699. Karplus, R. (1969). Introductory Physic*- A Model Approach, W.

A. Benjamin, New York. Karplus, R. (1981). Educational aspects of the structure of phys-

ics. American Journal of Physics 49: 238-241. Karplus, R., and Thier, H. D. (1967). A New Look at Elementary

School Science, Rand McNally, Chicago. Nussbaum, J. (1979). Children's conceptions of the Earth as a

cosmic body: A cross age study. Science Education 63: 83-93. Pollak, V. L. (1993). Science education I: The spirit of science.

Journal of Science Education and Technology 2: 513-519. Resnick, L. B. (1983). Mathematics and science learning: A new

conception. Science 220: 477-478. Rossiter, A., Jr. (1969). July 27. UPJ.



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Science Education II: Scientific Literacy and the Karplus Taxonomy