Yeung Chung Lee

Science‐Technology‐Society or Technology‐Society‐Science? Insights from an Ancient Technology

Current approaches to science‐technology‐society (STS) education focus primarily on the controversial socio‐scientific issues that arise from the application of science in modern technology. This paper argues for an interdisciplinary approach to STS education that embraces science, technology, history, and social and cultural studies. By employing a case study of traditional papermaking technology, it investigates how the interactions between technology and science can be explored in an authentic societal and cultural context across a historical time span. The term technology‐society‐science (TSS) is used to represent an alternative approach to linking technology, society, and science that aims to redress the imbalance between science and technology, and to resolve the tension between two diverging goals of STS education. The educational implications of this alternative approach to STS education are discussed.

Shark conservation: An educational approach based on children’s knowledge and perceptions toward sharks

Shark conservation has become a focus of current international conservation efforts. However, the misunderstanding of sharks and their negative public portrayal may hinder their conservation. More importantly, the consumption of shark fin, which is very common in Chinese cultures, poses a significant threat to sharks. Hong Kong has long been the world’s largest shark fin trading center. Shark conservation would become more sustainable if public understanding of this predatory fish and an appreciation of its ecological significance could be promoted. It is possible that the demand for fins could be effectively managed through long-term educational efforts targeted at younger generations. To provide essential baseline data for planning of these educational efforts, this project investigated the perceptions of 11 to 12 year-old primary school students in Hong Kong about sharks, and their understanding of ecological concepts and shark-related knowledge. The findings indicate that these students lack sufficient knowledge and possess misconceptions about sharks and their ecological significance in the marine ecosystem. The students’ conceptual understanding level is strongly correlated with their perceptions. Correlational analyses further demonstrated a positive association between formal education and perceptions toward shark conservation. The students who favoured shark fin consumption did so because of its tastiness, whereas concerns about shark population decline and the cruelty of shark hunting were the main reasons for not favoring shark fin consumption. This pilot study provides preliminary but important insights into primary school education regarding the conservation of sharks.

There Is More to the Dissection of a Pig's Heart.

The dissection of the mammalian heart in secondary biology classes need not be restricted to revealing the internal structure of the heart and its function. It could also be used to demonstrate other important aspects of blood circulation, including the blood supply to the heart itself as well as the causes and effects of coronary heart disease. The activities described in this paper serve to enrich this kind of classical dissection and extend its objectives to address new curricular emphases on Science-Technology-Society themes.

Blended learning for building student-teachers’ capacity to learn and teach science-related interdisciplinary subjects: The case of Hong Kong

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to report the design and evaluation of an inter-university collaborative project entitled “Blended learning for building student-teachers’ capacity to learn and teach science-related interdisciplinary subjects.” The project is a response of the science education faculty of three Hong Kong tertiary institutes to the challenge of catering to the diversity of academic backgrounds among student-teachers. Design/methodology/approach E-learning modules have been produced covering four content domains of science. These modules are designed based on the 5E learning model and are delivered to students using the learning management system provided by Moodle. The design of the modules is iterative, based on the evaluation of three consecutive rounds of trials through student surveys, and focus group interviews with students and course lecturers. Findings The evaluation findings indicate positive outcomes for certain attributes such as conceptual understanding, eagerness and confidence in learning science, and metacognitive reflection on students’ own learning. There are challenges to be met in relation to instructional design to cater for the diversity of student abilities, and enhance motivation in self-directed learning. Practical implications The project indicates the ways to develop students’ basic science knowledge in a mixed-ability setting through the design of self-directed e-learning modules blended with their major courses and possible measures to address the limitations of such design. Originality/value The study represents a conscious effort for the science teacher education faculty of different universities to pull together to tackle a perennial teaching and learning problem. The findings provide important insights into possible ways to blend e-learning with face-to-face learning approaches to better cater to the needs of science learners with mixed abilities to prepare them for interdisciplinary teaching.

The historical development of vaccine technology: exploring the relationship between science and technology

Abstract This paper examines the feasibility of using historical case studies to contextualise the learning of the nature of science and technology in a biology lesson. Through exploring the historical development of vaccine technology, students were expected to understand the complexity of the relationships between technology and science beyond the simplistic portrayal of technology as ‘applied science’. Instructional scaffolding in the form of Socratic Dialogue and self-reflection was used to engage students in thinking about the difference in the nature of science and technology and their mutual interactions. This was followed by students’ reflections on the insights they have gained from the lesson as a means to evaluate and reconstruct their own understanding if necessary. The educational implications of the findings are discussed to explore how technology could be further integrated into the school science curriculum to enhance scientific and technological literacy.

Hong Kong Students’ Decision-Making About Ecological and Health Issues

Decision-making about socioscientific issues could serve as a means to engage students in multi-perspective thinking, critical reasoning, argumentation, and value judgment, which are regarded as increasingly important goals of school education in general and science education in particular. This chapter draws on four studies that examine Hong Kong secondary students’ informal reasoning for decision-making about socioscientific issues in the areas of health and ecology. While some of these studies involved decision-making about issues within the context of Hong Kong, others engaged students in reasoning on regional or global issues with due consideration to the decision of their counterparts in other contexts or cultures. Three distinctive patterns of reasoning among Hong Kong students emerge from this review. These include their general ability to reason from multiple perspectives, insufficient use of scientific evidence to inform decision-making, and the tendency to change their decision through interactions with peers. Furthermore, the use of a decision-making framework to guide students’ decision-making and the impacts of interpersonal exchanges both within and across contextual or cultural groups on students’ decisions were discussed.

Self-Generated Analogical Models of Respiratory Pathways.

Self-generated analogical models have emerged recently as alternatives to teacher-supplied analogies and seem to have good potential to promote deep learning and scientific thinking. However, studies of the ways and contexts in which students generate these models are still too limited to allow a fuller appraisal of these models’ effectiveness in enhancing conceptual learning in science. This study explores how biology students aged 15–17 generated physical concrete models to represent their understanding of the respiration pathway after learning about it through a conventional flow diagram model. The analogies portrayed in students’ self-generated models provide teachers with a supplementary channel to explore students’ conceptual understandings of this complicated topic and allow students to reflect on ways in which the abstract pathway portrayed in textbooks actually makes sense to them.

Transforming a Traditional Hands-On Activity into an Enquiry Activity to Foster More In-Depth Understanding of the Concept of Density.

Traditional methods used to teach the concept of density that employ solid objects of different masses and volumes can be supplemented by enquiry activities in which students vary the mass-to-volume ratio of the same object to test ideas about density and flotation. A simple substance, Blu-Tack, is an ideal material to use in this case. The activity introduced in this article not only allows students to explore the effect of air on the density and flotation of an object, but also stimulates them to relate a macroscopic property such as density to the microscopic structure of matter.

A Vicarious Experience of the Actions of Contraceptive Devices in Birth Control and Prevention of Sexually Transmitted Diseases.

Teaching topics related to sex, such as sexual intercourse and contraceptive methods, has been a ‘taboo’ in Hong Kong schools. The consequence of this is the failure to treat those topics in a sufficiently in-depth manner, leaving a shroud of mystery which continues to envelop human sexuality. While fundamental changes to this scenario would necessitate an alteration of beliefs, values and attitudes of teachers, simple teaching technologies may help to generate interest and facilitate the teaching of these topics. In this paper, self-constructed models of the male and female reproductive systems are used to simulate sexual intercourse and the actions of contraceptive devices in preventing conception and sexually transmitted diseases. These simulation activities provide vicarious experiences to students, which would, hopefully, allow them to make sensible and informed decisions in their future sexual lives.