The following course in Introduction to science Skills is provided in its entirety by Atlantic International University's "Open Access Initiative " which strives to make knowledge and education readily available to those seeking advancement regardless of their socio-economic situation, location or other previously limiting factors. The University's Open Courses are free and do not require any purchase or registration, they are open to the public.
The course in Introduction to science contains the following:
The Administrative Staff may be part of a degree program paying up to three college credits. The lessons of the course can be taken on line Through distance learning. The content and access are open to the public according to the "Open Access" and " Open Access " Atlantic International University initiative. Participants who wish to receive credit and / or term certificate , must register as students.
Science is not merely a collection of facts, concepts, and useful ideas about nature, or even the systematic investigation of nature, although both are common definitions of science. Science is a method of investigating nature--a way of knowing about nature--that discovers reliable knowledge about it. In other words, science is a method of discovering reliable knowledge about nature. There are other methods of discovering and learning knowledge about nature (these other knowledge methods or systems will be discussed below in contradistinction to science), but science is the only method that results in the acquisition of reliable knowledge.
Reliable knowledge is knowledge that has a high probability of being true because its veracity has been justified by a reliable method. Reliable knowledge is sometimes called justified true belief, to distinguish reliable knowledge from belief that is false and unjustified or even true but unjustified.
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Lecture Materials
The professional development of science teachers requires the learning of fundamental scientific contents; the integration of knowledge’s from science, education and child studies and requires also the application of these knowledge to science teaching (Radford, 1998; Briscoe, Peters & O’Brien, 1993; National Academy of Sciences, 1996). Professional development should occur through inquiry methods and perspectives, that is teachers should first experiment the methods and activities that they are expected to use in their classrooms, in an environment of support and reflection of their experiences.
Lecture MaterialsLesson 3: Approaches to education
The purpose of science education is no longer simply to train that tiny fraction of the population who will become the next generation of scientists. We need a more scientifically literate populace to address the global challenges that humanity now faces and that only science can explain and possibly mitigate, such as global warming, as well as to make wise decisions, informed by scientific understanding, about issues such as genetic modification. Moreover, the modern economy is largely based on science and technology, and for that economy to thrive and for individuals within it to be successful; we need technically literate citizens with complex problem-solving skills.
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Lesson 4: The teacher and the teaching - learning process
Teaching resources In the teacher training context, a teachers’ performance adequate to a given pedagogic practice requires the acquisition of: (a) recognition rules to distinguish the specificity of the context of that practice; (b) passive realization rules to select the appropriate meanings to that on text; (c) active realization rules to implement in the classroom that pedagogic practice. Teachers’ adequate performance requires also to have socio-affective dispositions towards the implementation of that practice. Science is an inspiring process of discovery that helps satisfy the natural curiosity with which we are all born. Unfortunately, traditional instruction that misrepresents science as a body of facts to be memorized and the process of science as a rigid 5-step procedure can deaden students' spirit of inquiry.
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Lesson 5: Understanding Science: An overview
To understand what science is, just look around you. What do you see? Perhaps, your hand on the mouse, a computer screen, papers, ballpoint pens, the family cat, the sun shining through the window …. Science is, in one sense, our knowledge of all that — all the stuff that is in the universe: from the tiniest subatomic particles in a single atom of the metal in your computer's circuits, to the nuclear reactions that formed the immense ball of gas that is our sun, to the complex chemical interactions and electrical fluctuations within your own body that allow you to read and understand these words. But just as importantly, science is also a reliable process by which we learn about all that stuff in the universe. However, science is different from many other ways of learning because of the way it is done. Science relies on testing ideas withevidence gathered from the natural world.
Lecture MaterialsLesson 6: Case study
Development of primary school teachers (Afonso, 2002) and the analysis of the influence of their pedagogic practices on children’s scientific and socio-affective development (Pires, 2001). The analysis of the relation between training programs, teachers’ professional development and children’s learning has been defended by many authors such as Liston and Zeichner (1993), Monk and Dillon (1995), Tuomi (1997) and Wilson and Berne (1999). To understand what science is, just look around you. What do you see? Perhaps, your hand on the mouse, a computer screen, papers, ballpoint pens, the family cat, the sun shining through the window …. Science is, in one sense, our knowledge of all that — all the stuff that is in the universe: from the tiniest subatomic particles in a single atom of the metal in your computer's circuits, to the nuclear reactions that formed the immense ball of gas that is our sun, to the complex chemical interactions and electrical fluctuations within your own body that allow you to read and understand these words
Lecture MaterialsLesson 7: Case Study 2
The confidence of scientists arises from their knowing what they are doing and from their ability to say what science is. Science is progressive and exact. It is progressive in that it is always being revised, with new findings replacing what was once held to be knowledge. To be sure, what is held to be knowledge now will change, perhaps very soon. Is physics about atoms? No, today it is about the distance between atoms. Strict science is today’s science; there is no reason for scientists to study the past of their discipline, the history of science. That field is part of non-science, the history department, not of science. If Galileo were to return today, he would accept our science as improved, as more exact. “Exact” means “leaves no room for doubt.” What is most exact? Mathematics; so science today is mathematical.
Lecture MaterialsLesson 8: Environmental Education
Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802; grandfather of Charles Darwin) a British physician and poet in the late 1700's, proposed that life had changed over time, although he did not present a mechanism. Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (pronounced Bu-fone; 1707-1788) in the middle to late 1700's proposed that species could change. This was a major break from earlier concepts that species were created by a perfect creator and therefore could not change because they were perfect, etc.
Swedish botanist Carl Linne (more popularly known as Linneus, after the common practice of the day which was to latinize names of learned men), attempted to pigeon-hole all known species of his time (1753) into immutable categories.
Lesson 9: Environmental Education 2
The student population in the U.S. is increasingly more diverse racially and ethnically. The U.S Census collects data on race based on demographic groups of non-Hispanic White, Hispanic, Black or African American, American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, and Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander. Although the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) Science scores have improved in recent years, significant achievement gaps by racial subgroups persist. Current policies address these shortfalls by implementing guidelines for tracking the progress of underrepresented groups of students in science and by calling to address science achievement gaps.
Lecture MaterialsLesson 10: School and non-school education
All animals need food in order to live and grow. They obtain their food from plants or from other animals. Plants need water and light to live and grow.
Food provides animals with the materials they need for body repair and growth and the energy they need to maintain body warmth and for motion.
Plants acquire their material for growth chiefly from air and water.
Plants, algae (including phytoplankton), and many microorganisms use the energy from light to make sugars (food) from carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and water through the process of photosynthesis, which also releases oxygen. These sugars can be used immediately or stored for growth or later use.
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