Miles Barker

Teaching the 'nature of science': modest adaptations or radical reconceptions?

This article explores the nature of a continuing mismatch between curriculum reform rhetoric in science education and actual classroom practice. Lack of philosophical consensus about the nature of science (NOS); lack of appropriate curriculum guidance, classroom materials and pedagogical content knowledge for NOS teaching; teachers’ personal theories of learning; and the realities of classroom constraints are all implicated as interacting factors that contribute to the mismatch. Because curriculum policy is political, with pressure brought to bear by many interest groups, it is suggested that the science teaching community cannot adequately address the issues raised in the absence of wider community debate and support.

Teaching and learning about photosynthesis. Part 1: An assessment in terms of students’ prior knowledge

Abstract Three strategies for teaching and learning about photosynthesis are described and criticized on the grounds that none of them promotes understanding of photosynthesis as a carbohydrate‐producing process in a way which can be related to students’ prior knowledge. The ‘guided discovery’ strategy, which currently predominates in classrooms, involves experimental procedures which frequently distract students from the crucial aspect, i.e., starch production, but leaves their prior understandings largely undisturbed. An ‘element analysis’ strategy and a ‘meaning of plant food’ strategy are also assessed.

Towards a scientific concept of ‘animal’

Many students, even at a senior secondary level, do not have a scientifically acceptable concept of an animal. This paper describes the evaluation of some teaching activities focusing on the scientific concept of ‘animal’.

Teaching and learning about photosynthesis. Part 2: A generative learning strategy

A new strategy exploring the material aspects of photosynthesis (carbohydrate production) based on the generative learning model of Osborne and Wittrock (1985) has been developed. A teaching package entitled ‘Where Does The Wood Come From?’ has been trialled by an experienced and sympathetic teacher with a middle ability class of 26 fourth formers (14‐year‐olds). Seventy‐one per cent of the students acquired a view of photosynthesis as a carbohydrate‐producing process. This contrasts with the usual guided discovery strategy, where a food‐making view is the major outcome. Some novel techniques for implementing constructivist theory in the classroom (investigations, surveys, a self‐teach booklet, checkpoints) are described. Modifications to the generative learning model itself, especially its apparently sequential nature, are suggested.

Photosynthesis--Can Our Pupils See the Wood for the Trees?.

The usual classroom guided discovery approach to teaching and learning about photosynthesis frequently fails in its major objective, that is assisting pupils to understand photosynthesis as a carbohydrate-producing process. Many pupils are distracted by other unclarified teacher objectives (e.g. photosynthesis as foodmaking) and by problems with experimental procedures. A novel constructivistic approach, the generative learning strategy, is described. This approach encourages pupils to surface and discuss their out-of-school ideas about plant breathing, drinking, wood production, soil, minerals, leaves etc., and assists them to link appropriate ideas together to form an introductory explanation for the origin of plant materials. Classroom trials with a package entitled Where does the wood come from? are encouraging.

Understanding Student Learning in Environmental Education in Aotearoa New Zealand

This paper seeks to provide a perspective on environmental education in Aotearoa New Zealand. To contextualise this perspective, it illustrates how environmental, socio-cultural and political imperatives have shaped the development of environmental education in this land. These imperatives illuminate the natural history of the country, the connectedness within the worldviews of the indigenous Maori people, the pioneering views of some enlightened European settlers, and tensions between development and conservation. We connect this context with an overview of research in Aotearoa New Zealand into one aspect of environmental education - student learning in schools. Examples from recent research in this area are provided to show how these approaches are contributing to the Aotearoa New Zealand-ness of environmental education.

Understanding transpiration – more than meets the eye

Individual interviews about plants and water uptake with sixty 8–17-year-old students (36 before traditional teaching about transpiration and 24 after) revealed that 25 and 22 per cent respectively considered that leaves (as well as roots) absorb water, and 56 and 37 per cent respectively believed that plants retain all of the water which they absorb. I address the fact that post-teach students hold these non-scientific views in the face of classroom experiences with potometers, cobalt chloride paper, etc. I propose five ways in which teachers can supplement their usual teaching about transpiration with opportunities for students to volunteer and test out their own ideas.

Such shameful whoredom

Analogies between plants and animals are often a source of confusion in the understanding of sexual reproduction in green plants The ancient view that plants are non-sexual because they hold a place below animals on the ladder of nature was still held by many scientists in the 1 8th century. Paradoxically, al this time, Linnaeus and others were also postulating the universality of plant sexuality by using analogies with animals to over-extend the slowly emerging experimental evidence about the functions of floral parts. Todays school leavers seem to have similarly diverse views. A lack of school focus on gamete fusion appears to result in a continuing reliance on analogies with animals, and a belief that plants undergo only a qualified version of sexual reproduction. Suggestions for classroom activities to overcome this are offered, and some wider implications are considered.

Priorities, identity and the environment: Negotiating the early teenage years

ABSTRACT This study focuses on the negotiation of environmental identity by 10 New Zealand students as they progressed from late primary school to junior secondary school. Interviews with these students and their parents focused on six theoretical perspective prominent in environmental education: significant life experiences, transformative learning, environmental literacy, values, action competence, and environmental identity. Thirteen major themes emerged, which are discussed in terms of two overarching findings. First, the deep-seated, composite and pivotal resonances between home and school influences in effective environmental education for sustainability (EEfS) learning are described, and suggestions are made for how this can be better taken into account. Secondly, a focus on the complex negotiation of the early teenage years suggests how promoting EEfS might occur more productively in secondary schools.