Most students do not become scientists and for these students the main purpose of science education is to teach strong, evidence-based thinking and to express admiration about the natural world. These goals can be fulfilled by any branch of science; there is no clear reason why biology will be better than physics or earth science will be more important than chemistry. Indeed, it is undoubtedly possible to point to curricula and classes in all fields of science that do extraordinary work in teaching scientific thought. However, that does not mean that it is equally easy for teachers to achieve these goals in each domain.
It is clearly important for students to have real and meaningful laboratory experience in science classes. It is possible to have good laboratories in all branches of science but the challenges can be very different. One of the big challenges in biology is that experiments often take a long time. Often, getting results is not possible in a single 45-minute class period. Even with a double period of 1.5 hours, designing an appropriate biology experiment can be difficult. On the other hand, working with animals (and even plants, fungi, and protists) is inherently motivating and attractive to most students. In addition, many of the most important ideas in biology are less abstract and mathematical than the big ideas in physics and chemistry, and are therefore more easily absorbed by many students.
In contrast, physics laboratories often get results far faster than biology laboratories and can have dramatic dramatic advantages. The difficulty for physics teachers is to bridge nissui indonesia the gap between the laboratory and the principles they demonstrate. It's no secret that physics involves a bit of mathematics and many students are so caught up in their struggle with mathematics that they can't see the ideas behind the formula. One of the most successful solutions to this difficulty is the conceptual physics class, which is often successful in helping students understand the great ideas of physics.
Chemistry laboratories also tend to be fast enough to enter class periods and are often very interesting. Indeed, the most common request I get as a science teacher is for "explosions" which are almost entirely in the chemical domain. With chemistry laboratories, the challenge of dueling is safety and connecting macroscopic results with microscopic reasons behind the results. Safety in chemical laboratories is often best overcome by having a well-designed and dedicated laboratory in the school. When that is not possible, working around using household chemicals instead of their more interesting and dangerous counterparts is sometimes possible. Linking lab results with molecular actions becomes easier for teachers because better and better computer simulations for chemistry education are developed.
Earth science is the fourth major branch of science and is the most forgotten. In some cases this is the broadest subject; every study of earth science will certainly touch on aspects of chemistry, physics, and biology. Designing an earth science laboratory is quite challenging because it is not possible to actually manipulate landforms or weather in the classroom. For this reason, earth science laboratories rely heavily on models. Dependence on the model can be a strength if it is used as an opportunity to really explore the place of the model in science or it can be a weakness if a simple model is used as a substitute for a complex system without discussion.
Each branch of science has its own strengths and weaknesses from the point of view of a teacher who designs a curriculum with strong, relevant and interesting laboratory components. For most students, it doesn't really matter which branch (or branch) they are learning; rather it is important that they study scientific thought and evidence-based reasoning.
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