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Dave, Bill,

You both hit the nail on the head re science education and teachers  
in general...

Schools today , despite their high-tech facilities, are failing to  
provide the kind of science education necessary for the 21st century.  
We are turning out kids and future teachers who have not been taught  
to think. I believe this lies at the heart of the problems we are now  
facing. Because we still have a formal educational system which  
continues to define “science” as a set of disciplines, and a body of  
to-be-mastered facts,  rather than as a powerful thinking and problem- 
solving tool; a tool by which to perceive our world, explore it,  
understand it.
The future is grim, unless we start treating “science” as a  
fundamental human mental skill that can – and must - be trained;  
unless we make “scientific thinking” an integral part of what  
education is all about,  from pre-school to university, and beyond.  
This is what “scientific literacy”, is really all about; I personally  
prefer to call it “scientific intelligence”.

So Bill, back to your question
> What is it about an exhibit that
> explores weather or a demonstration to explore electricity that  
> will help
> kids be able to reason about evolution?

It depends on IF and HOW an exhibit topic is contextualised in order  
to promote reasoning:  just as the principles behind electricity/ 
weather/gravity/you-name-it don't "lie" and are not a matter of  
faith, so do the principles behind radiometric dating not  "lie"  
about placing a dinosaur fossil 60 million+ years before the  
appearance of man....

Cheers,

Diana


– –
Dr. Diana C. Issidorides
Senior Scientist & Exhibition Developer
Science Center NEMO
P.O. Box 421
1000 AK Amsterdam
The Netherlands
T: +31205313201
[log in to unmask] / [log in to unmask]
www.e-nemo.nl

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