The Teaching of Science
The Teaching of Science
INTRODUCTION
One of the most important and pervasive goals of schooling is to teach students to think.
All school subjects should share in accomplishing this overall goal. Science contributes
its unique skills, with its emphasis on hypothesizing, manipulating the physical world and
reasoning from data.
Teaching Science is one of the most interesting tasks of a teacher. Science learning
should be fun and challenging. These are strategies and methods that are appropriate for
the subject matter you will teach. You will make the children have their minds on and
hands on together.
The scientific method, scientific thinking and critical thinking have been terms used at
various times to describe these science skills. Today the term "science process skills" is
commonly used. Popularized by the curriculum project, Science - A Process Approach
(SAPA), these skills are defined as a set of broadly transferable abilities, appropriate to
many science disciplines and reflective of the behavior of scientists. SAPA grouped
process skills into two types-basic and integrated. The basic (simpler) process skills
provide a foundation for learning the integrated (more complex) skills. These skills are
listed and described below.
Observing - using the senses to gather information about an object or event. Example:
Describing a pencil as yellow.
Controlling variables - being able to identify variables that can affect an experimental
outcome, keeping most constant while manipulating only the independent variable.
Example: Realizing through past experiences that amount of light and water need to be
controlled when testing to see how the addition of organic matter affects the growth of
beans.
Interpreting data - organizing data and drawing conclusions from it. Example:
Recording data from the experiment on bean growth in a data table and forming a
conclusion which relates trends in the data to variables.
There are many strategies in the use of inquiry-based science. Below are some
examples. Inquiry-based science involves learners to do science when given the
opportunities to explore possible solution, make explanations for the phenomena under
study, elaborate explanation on the concepts and processes and make assessment of
how these are understood based on available evidences.
2. Q-M-S Strategy
Question of problem
Means or how the plan will be carried out
Solution
References
Bilbao, P.P et al., Teaching Science Volume 1, Lorimar Publishing, Inc., Brgy. Kaunlaran, Cubao,
Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines, 2019
https://narst.org/research-matters/science-process-skills