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Lecture notes of 22 pages for the course Learning and teaching in primary education at OU (Study topic notes)
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Study Topic 17: ScienceThis study topic considers science as an area of learning in primary schools and looks at
ways of supporting children’s learning in science, including the role and potential of new
technologies. You will consider science in school in relation to its place in children’s
everyday lives and also in the wider world.
Some areas of the science curriculum have a history of seeming more challenging than other
areas. An important message in this study topic is that everyone, adults and children, may
have more understanding of science than they realise. For teaching staff, this is crucial: if
they are enthusiastic and open to learning, that will come across positively to the children.
Please be aware that we do not address issues of health and safety in any depth in this
study topic. However, if you are currently working in a role supporting children with science,
or planning to undertake any science activities involving children, it is essential that you are
familiar with the school’s policy and procedures for health and safety.
1 Attitudes to science
The ways in which adults endeavour to support children’s science learning can be influenced by existing
beliefs and values, as well as their knowledge of science (Solomon and Tresman, 1999). It can also
depend on how adults feel about themselves as learners of science. To explore this further, we want you
to reflect on your own feelings about science.
Activity 17.1 How do you feel about science?
Timing: Allow about 20 minutes
Task 1: First, think about science from your own schools days.
1. List three good aspects about science in school that you can recall from your childhood. Jot these
down in the box below.
Activity 17.1 How do you feel about science?, Your response to Question 1a
2. Now do the same with three aspects that were not so good, where you feel your learning could have
been improved.
Task 2: Now think about science in the world.
1. List three good aspects about science in the world today, and jot them down.
2. Do the same with three aspects that are not so good, where you feel that things could be better.
Activity 17.1 How do you feel about science?, Your response to Question 1d
Comment
Having considered some of your own feelings towards science, read the comments below by two people
giving their different positions.
Person 1
I was never any good at science. I hated it. I never understood what we were supposed to be doing in
practicals, or why we needed to know stuff, like equations or naming the parts of plants.
,It was hard. It was boring. It was pointless.
Scientists are always arguing, so you can never tell what’s right.
Person 2
I wasn’t very good at science but I quite enjoyed it, especially the practicals and when we did role play
and debates.
It was often hard, but when I understood something it was worth it.
Most of our problems in the world are caused by greed: science has made life easier, longer and better
for most of us, and we don’t stand a chance of solving global problems without it.
A lot of science seems really well proven. The arguments either happen at the leading edge, or when
there are powerful vested interests at stake.
It seems to us that Person 2 is better situated to support science learning: she doesn’t claim to know
everything but has a balanced and generally positive attitude to the subject. It is harder to see how
Person 1 could be enthusiastic and positively encouraging to children.
1.1 Getting comfortable with science
Stephen Lunn, one of the authors of this study topic, talked to some primary teachers about their views
on what science is, why we should teach it and what it means to be ‘comfortable’ with science. In
particular, he asked them about their memories of learning science in school and about their classroom
practice in teaching science. We include below a ‘science profile’ for Irene, one of the teachers he
interviewed.
Irene's view of science
Irene sees science as a process (study of the world) with a purpose (to help us understand it) carried out
by fallible humanity. It tries to create succinct, testable explanations, and is concerned with the natural
world rather than human feelings. Human problems and technological and medical needs drive progress
in science. Irene is sceptical of ‘official’ statements that use science selectively, cherry-picking the aspects
that support government policy.
She would like everyone to learn science in order to have some idea of the scientific explanations of why
the world is as it is, of everyday phenomena like night and day, the seasons, their own heartbeat –
otherwise they are ‘just living in a world of cotton wool’. She believes that, as humans, we have a
collective responsibility for what our species does and that we have only ourselves to blame if we suffer,
but we do have a collective responsibility to protect unborn generations and the natural world.
Outside school, Irene works as a volunteer with HIV patients and is an active member of environmental
groups. She follows science in the media, reads some popular science books and is enthusiastic about the
space programme: every year she tries to take her class on a visit to the National Space Centre just
outside Leicester.
In her teaching, Irene tries to convey the interdependence of the physical and biological systems of the
world, and of our place in and responsibilities towards them. She believes that doing science – with
children framing and conducting open-ended investigations – is hard but worthwhile, compared with the
rote learning of scientific ‘facts’. Both children and scientists make better progress when they have time
to ‘play around’.
(Adapted from Lunn, 2002, pp. 661–3)
, Activity 17.2 The nature of science
Timing: Allow about 40 minutes
Task 1: You may have already developed similarly strong views to Irene about science, or it may be that
you have never been asked to think about the subject in this way before. Consider the following
questions.
What is science?
Should everyone learn some science? If so, what and why?
How do you engage with science in your everyday life?
What do you feel is important about how science is presented to primary children?
Task 2: Write a short profile in the box below of how you see science, using your answers to Task 1 to
frame your response.
Comment
One of the module team made the following notes in response to this activity. You don’t have to agree
with them. How do these views compare with your own responses?
Science is a way of finding out about the world. Through systematic sharing of ideas and evidence, and
through honesty, openness and scepticism, it lets us work out what we can safely say about reality, based
on current evidence, and provides a forum in which evidence and ideas are tested to the limit. Scientific
knowledge is always subject to change in the light of new evidence, new ideas and new interpretations.
Everyone should learn from science, because, as Irene says, if you don’t try to understand your world,
you just live in ‘a world of cotton wool’. In thinking about what we should learn, we need to start with
what we want to know.
I engage with science in my everyday life through popular science books, the topical media, occasional
visits to science museums, doing science in the classroom, and using science-like processes and
knowledge to make sense of the things that I encounter at home – in the kitchen, in the garden, doing
odd jobs around the house, engaging with local environmental issues, thinking through local, national
and international issues, choosing how to vote, etc.
As Joan Solomon argued, it’s much more important how science is taught than what is taught; much
more important how children learn than what they learn. Adults in primary schools need to understand
that you don’t need to start off being ‘good at science’ to teach it well. Being curious about things and
conveying a sense of wanting to find out more are what’s really important. In Section 4, you will look in
more detail at strategies that teachers, students and teaching assistants can apply to support children’s
learning of science.
1.2 Positive attitudes to science
In the following reading, Joan Solomon argues that children experience a special fascination and
excitement when they enjoy science. The kind of science that she talks about may be different from the
sort of science you experienced at school, but that is no reason why it can’t be the way that you begin to
experience the world of science now, and the approach to science that is provided to children in schools.
Reading 17.1 An interview with Joan Solomon
Timing: Allow about 50 minutes
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