Chapter 7: Science, Technology, and Society

Objectives:

1. Develop rationale for including technology and social

perspectives in science classroom

2. Explain how technology is related to science/society

3. Describe how studying technological devices can

become an integral part of science instruction

4. Describe strategies for teaching STS

5. Discuss teaching controversial topics such as evolution

I. Rationale for teaching STS
A. Science and Technology have profound effects on society
1. Provides products that increase quality of life
2. Negative effects of weapons, pollution, etc…
3. Students will live in an increasingly technological society and
therefore need to understand how these institutions interact
4. We can make science instruction relevant to students
a. Personal experience and societal context for lessons
b. AIDS, obesity, water quality, national defense, etc…
c. Our students will have to make informed decisions about these issues

B. The STS approach to science instruction

1. Science for meeting personal needs
2. Science for addressing societal issues and problems
3. Science for assisting with career choices

C. National and local standards

1. National Science Education Standards
2. Benchmarks for Scientific Literacy
3. Kansas State Department of Education
II. What is Technology
A. Descriptions
1. Involves the design or products, systems, and processes that
affect the quality of life, using the knowledge of science when
necessary
2. An applied enterprise concerned with producing appliances, tools,
machines, and techniques
3. Products are called inventions
B. Examples
1. Simple tools for hunting, fishing, or farming
2. Computers, satellites, airplanes
C. Engineers
1. Design and produce products using science
2. Must know about the business they are working for as well as the
science to design products
D. Concerns
1. Mass production is often the goal
2. Depletion of natural resources and pollution
III. Incorporating STS into Science Instruction
A. Design and Build
1. Have students build working models of machines
a. Series and parallel circuits
b. Water clocks
c. Radios
d. Robots
2. Build new machines for specific purpose
a. Build a bridge using popsicle sticks that will hold a certain weight
b. Build a container to keep an egg from breaking when dropped
3. Benefits
a. Design a solution to a real problem
b. Implement and evaluate designs
c. Communicate about their designs to other students
d. Leads to student initiated designs on problems important to them

B. Investigate and Improve

1. Library/Internet research on how technology was invented
2. Explain how it works, scientific principles, and diagrams
 3. Give beneficial uses
4. Discuss limitations or potential dangers
5. Offer suggestions for improvement

C. Focus on current issues and problems

1. Major focus of most science standards
2. Issue = an idea on which people hold different beliefs and values
a. Should recycling be mandatory
b. Should we fine drivers for not wearing a seat belt
3. Problem = a situation that is a risk for a given population
a. Poisoning of fish downstream from industry
b. Lead poisoning in older homes from lead-based paints

4. Goal is conceptual enhancement rather than conceptual change

a. Confront students with alternative positions than their own
b. Challenge and enrich their understanding
c. Reconcile incompatible ideas by reorganizing current knowledge
d. Make judgments about science, technology, and society
D. Strategies
1. Inculcation = attempting to convince others of your value judgment
a. Not recommended because of inherent problems
b. May be perceived as coercion
c. Likely present only one side of a complex issue
d. Example: industry is bad because they pollute

2. Awareness of Issues and Problems

a. Clarification of student’s own personal values on complex issues
b. Allows confrontation issues of concern in a constructive way
c. Helps students become award of other students’ beliefs
d. Find a newspaper article to spark a discussion
e. List questions that make students define their values
f. “Four corners” of the classroom for strongly agree, agree, strongly
disagree, and disagree. Teacher makes statements and students
move to corner, where they must explain their position
g. “Vignettes” are short descriptions of a problem followed by questions
i. Can be done daily or weekly for as little as 5 minutes
ii. Students can keep a journal
3. Issue and Problem Investigation
a. Goes beyond awareness by increasing science content
b. Stresses organization of facts, presentation of evidence
c. Requires library, field, or internet research
d. Separates fact from opinion
e. Promotes scientific inquiry and higher level thinking skills
f. Structured controversy model (Johnson, 1988)
i. Identify and clarify the basic question
ii. Gather facts about the issue under study
iii. Evaluate the factual information
iv. Evaluate the relevance of the factual information
v. Propose a tentative decision
vi. Determine the acceptability of the solution
g. Reversing perspective of students helps them see all sides of an issue
h. Forces students to make a decision (sometimes they even act on it)

4. Action Learning
a. Extends learning beyond classroom by having students act in society
b. Community service project (adopt a stream)
c. Requires time, commitment outside of class
 5. Project-Based Science
a. Students work in teams to investigate and present findings
b. STS issues and problems are ideally suited
c. Criticized for not teaching enough content
d. Should include teacher directed lessons with student investigations
e. Easiest to incorporate when all project are on the same issue

E. STS Curriculum Programs

1. FACETS = Foundations and Challenges to Encourage Technology-
based Science (American Chemical Society, 1996)
a. Middle school curriculum with physical, life, and earth science focus
b. Modules on growing older, changing shorelines, climate and farming…

2. Event-Based Science
a. Centered on real events beginning with media coverage
b. Students work toward producing a solution to the problem

3. Biology: A Community Context

a. Follows structured controversy model
b. Students keep logbooks containing data, ideas, etc…
 4. Concerns
a. May disadvantage students in college due to less traditional content
b. Ware (1992) has found this not to be the case
c. Student will likely have a better attitude about science, better lab skills

F. Considerations for STS instruction (p. 143)

1. Select topics directly related to curriculum
2. Select topics relevant to students’ lives
3. Select topics appropriate to the age group
4. Teacher must be knowledgeable about the issues

IV. Evolution, Creationism and Teaching Science

A. Society influence how science is taught
1. Scopes Trial, 1925
a. Tennessee teacher found guilty of “teaching evolution”
b. Sensational trial actually perceived as victory for evolutionists
2. 1968 US Supreme Court allows evolution instruction
3. 1982 Creationism is not a science and needn’t receive equal time
 4. KSBE 1999 restricts emphasis of evolution in state standards and in
state assessments.
a. Did not prohibit teaching of evolution
b. Did not remove mention of evolution from standards
c. Later, these changes were revoked by KSBE

B. NSTA 1997 differentiated between science and nonscience

1. Science is internally consistent and compatible with evidence
2. Science is based on evidence
3. Science has been tested against a diverse range of phenomena
4. Science has broad problem-solving effectiveness
5. Science explains a wide variety of phenomena
6. p. 145 recommendations for teaching evolution
C. Equal time for creationism?
1. Academic freedom issue for science teachers
2. All theories should not be treated equally
3. Can excuse students from evolution instruction if offended
4. Creationism is religion, not science US Supreme Court 1987
5. Evolution is not necessarily in conflict with religion