What is Science Education?

Science education

Jonathan Osborne (2007) suggests that “Science education should be to develop scientific literacy and explores what that might consist of and why such an education is necessary in contemporary society. It views emphasize on science education as an essential aspect of what is generally known as modern community learning.

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (2012) states that Science education is the field concerned with sharing science content and process with individuals not traditionally considered part of the scientific community. The target individuals may be children, college students, or adults within the general public. The field of science education comprises science content, some social science, and some teaching pedagogy. This definition focuses on two important points namely the process of sharing science content and the learning community. The concept of “sharing science content” exerts a big influence the reason being that it relies on science teaching.  

Science education in Sri Lanka

Science education as a discipline was introduced to the Ceylonese schools by the British rulers. But Science education was formalized in our education system in Sri Lanka in the 1950s with the contribution of Mr. Jinapala Alles in equipping resources and laboratories. In 1963 the Curriculum Development Center (CDR) was established with the objective of developing science education in the country. This center in Sri Lanka has considered the development of many programmes found in the industrial countries in the 1970s, such as Nuffield, Physical Science study committee (PSSC, 1959), Biological science curriculum study (BSCS, 1960), Chemical education Material Study (CHEM study, 1963), and the Earth science curriculum project (ESCP, 1967) in the curriculum development process. During this period more emphasis was given to the development of the cognitive domain where the concern was on learning science facts and building up scientific knowledge under the programme. Science:  Process Approach (SAPA, 1965) was introduced where hands-on science and discovery were the hall marks (Karunaratne, 2011). The present status of science education in Sri Lanka has been molded by the social, political, economical and religious forces that acted on the system of education in general. The educational background of the science teacher is obviously only one of the variables contributing to student achievement in science.