Re: California Science Framework

["John S. Denker" <jsd@MONMOUTH.COM>]

Larry Woolf wrote:

> Below are 4 excerpts from the Introduction to the California Science
> Framework.
> http://www.cde.ca.gov/cdepress/catalog/science-excerpts/introduction.pdf
>  I would be interested to know if anyone on the last has opinions on
> this official document that is meant to guide California K-12 science
> teaching.

> 1. "When large blocks of time for science instruction are not
> feasible, teachers must make use of smaller blocks.

That sounds like a truism.  But it is even less
informative than most truisms, because I don't
know what they mean by "large blocks" or "smaller
blocks".

> For example, an elementary teacher and the class may have a brief but
> spirited discussion on why plant seeds have different shapes or why
> the moon looks different each week."

How do I make a discussion more "spirited" -- do
I bring in cheerleaders?  If I can make by brief
discussions spirited, why can't I use the same
techniques to make all my discussions spirited?

Even if, by way of contrast, I have large blocks
of time available, why would I spend more time
than necessary discussing the phases of the moon?
Or, if I have only small blocks available, why
should I spend less time than necessary on the
subject?

Time management is central to teaching (and just
about every other activity in modern life);  I
don't think a one-sentence or two-sentence truism
is going to advance the state of the art very much.

> 2. "Science education in kindergarten through grade twelve trains the
> mind and builds intellectual strength and must not be limited to the
> lasting facts and skills that can be remembered into adulthood.

That sentence is somewhere between hard to
parse and outright ambiguous, especially when
juxtaposed with the next one:

> Science must be taught at a level of rigor and depth that goes well
> beyond what a typical adult knows.

Are these two sentences saying kids should be
taught a lot of facts and skills that they will
not retain into adulthood?  Or are they saying
that there is something called "intellectual
strength" that is not a fact nor a skill, that is
somehow retained (with? or without?) the facts
and skills?  I'm lost.

> It must be taught “for the sake of science” and not with any
> particular vocational goal in mind. The study of science disciplines
> the minds of students; and the benefits of this intellectual training
> are realized long after schooling, when the details of the science
> may be forgotten."

Einstein said an education is what remains after
you've forgotten everything you learned in school.

Perhaps this item (2) is trying to say that the
methods of science learned in one subfield are
readily applicable to other subfields?

> 3. "In doing their research good scientists do not attempt to prove
> that their own hypotheses are correct but that they are incorrect."

That's oversimplified to the point of being
not very meaningful and possibly misleading.

> 4. "For example, students might learn about Ohm’s law,

OK

> one of the guiding principles of physics,

Oh, really!  I think that shows the unsophistication
of whoever is writing this.

> which states that electrical current decreases proportionately as
> resistance increases in an electrical circuit operating under a
> condition of constant voltage.

Actually Ohm's law says more than that.

> In practice, the principle accounts for why a flash-light with
> corroded electrical contacts does not give a bright beam, even with
> fresh batteries.

OK.

> It is a simple relationship, expressed as V=IR, and embodied in high
> school Physics Standard 5.b. In a laboratory exercise, however,
> students may obtain results that seem to disprove the linear
> relationship because the resistance of a circuit element varies with
> temperature. The temperature of the components gradually increases as
> repeated tests are performed, and the data become skewed. In the
> foregoing example, it was not Ohm’s law that was wrong but an
> assumption about the stability of the experimental apparatus. This
> assumption can be proven by additional experimentation and provides
> an extraordinary opportunity for students to learn about the
> scientific method.

Extraordinary opportunity?

The only extraordinary thing about that passage is
the number of different ideas jumbled together.

> Had the students been left to uncover on their own the relationship
> between current and resistance, their skewed data would not have
> easily led them to discover Ohm’s law. A sensible balance of direct
> instruction and investigation and a focus on demonstration of
> scientific principles provide the best science lesson."

It takes a whole lot more than one experiment or
even one type of experiment to teach kids scientific
principles.

 -- Inintially there needs to be some exposure to
the basic regularities under ideal circumstances.
 -- Later, as the kids become more experienced
and more sophisticated, there needs to be some
exposure to nonidealities and the scientific
treatment of uncertainty and inexactitude.
 -- Much, much later there comes scientific
_research_ wherein one attempts to discover new
laws.  This is part art and part science.  Most
people don't understand it.  Most elementary
school teachers don't understand it.  There are
even quite a few researchers who are quite
skilled at it who would be hard pressed to give
a cogent account of how the process works.

Conflating a grade-school introduction to Ohm's
law with the processes that might lead to the
_discovery_ of Ohm's law doesn't strike me as
necessarily the "best science lesson".