Science teaching for the citizen of the future

Towards scientific literacy for the third millennium: a view from Australia

“…Chen and Novik (1984), Miller (1984) and Krugly-Smolska (1990) remind us of the emancipatory outcomes that science should achieve for those who can relate it to their world and ethical codes. Still within this wider concept Kings (1990) reminds us of the costs of ignorance, Cross (1990) Eckersley (1988) refers to the science/technology nexus as a matter of public interest.…”

“…Despite the Downloaded by [York University Libraries] at 04:30 27 November 2014 fact that one in ten leaders in business, government and the unions consider themselves scientifically illiterate, the survey found a vast unfounded optimism in the community, with two-thirds of the population believing that their own jobs or main activity would be unaffected by technological change. Miller (1984), on the other hand, emphasizes the importance of scientific literacy for emancipation. A proper understanding of science and its limitations is seen by Miller as the best protection against the kind of knowledge abuse that has historically spawned dogmatism, and an elitism associated with the conviction that some people have absolute knowledge sufficient to give them the right to dominate others.…”

Two approaches to science‐technology‐society (S‐T‐S) education

“…Sections of textbooks dealing with the economic aspects of science were concerned almost exclusively with the economic importance of organisms and their products to humans. The social aspects of science approach is fairly common in discussions of goals for S-T-S education (for example see, Miller, 1984;Lucas, 1981;and Zeidler, 1984), but receives little explicit emphasis in curricula and textbooks. Most individual S-T-S courses, even though oriented to teaching specific social issues, state broad goals congruent with at least some social aspects of science.…”