The Value of Science Education

The utilization of subject-matter found in the present life-experience of the learner towards science is perhaps the best illustration that can be found of the basic principle of using existing experience as the means of carrying learners on to a wider, more refined, and better organized world.

—John Dewey, Experience and Education, 1938

Every fall, several million children mark the beginning of their formal education by entering kindergarten. These five-years-olds are full of enthusiasm and excitement. They will ride the school bus like the big kids and have a chance to see what school is all about. Parents, too, see this moment as a turning point. School provides an opportunity for children to discover the answers to questions they often ask, such as, How are rocks made? and Why do ships float? All those close to children hope that school will continue to spark children's natural love of learning.

Teachers use many strategies to keep that love of learning alive. To stimulate their students' natural curiosity, some teachers arrange field trips to wetlands, rivers, and lakes as part of their study of natural ecosystems. To keep young imaginations flourishing, other teachers bring duck eggs to school and encourage students to care for them and imagine what the ducklings will be like when they hatch. To instill a love of experimental inquiry, teachers use materials such as batteries and bulbs or rocks and minerals as the starting point for asking questions, experimenting, developing theories, and communicating their ideas

THE LIMITATIONS OF TRADITIONAL CLASSROOMS
Why did this lesson fail to hold the children's interest? Why were the
children restless and seemingly unmotivated to explore the ideas presented
during the science lesson?
For one thing, the children did not do science. They did not examine
objects, observe phenomena, design experiments, collect data, or discuss their
ideas. There were no opportunities for independent thinking and problem
solving. Instead, they simply read about science. The children gained very little,
because the book they were reading was describing things they knew or cared
little about. Most children today have never seen a windmill firsthand and have
no idea what a pumping machine is. The fact that a windmill can generate
electricity is also meaningless to these children;

to them, electricity is something that happens when they turn on a light switch.
"Work" and "energy" are abstract ideas that have never been made concrete or
meaningful to them. Because these ideas are beyond the realm of their
experience, the children have little desire to explore them further.
Experience is the key factor. Research on children's learning has revealed
that when children do not have firsthand experiences with the things they are
learning about in school, the information that the curriculum seeks to convey
will often not make sense to them. Jean Piaget, a Swiss psychologist, devoted
his life to observing children and drawing conclusions about their intellectual
growth. His work laid the foundation for further studies of how children learn, a
field that is now called cognitive science. One key finding that has emerged
from this work is that children learn actively and they do so through direct
experiences with the physical world.







Student's firewalking experience reinforce learning process toward understanding about the concept of heat transfer.