Many of those countries that currently aspire to achieve and retain prosperous economies place great value on the provision of science education for all citizens, not only during the years of schooling but also throughout life. The pattern of reactions by individuals to these national aspirations is mixed. In some countries the demand for science education is high, yet in others this is far from being the case. What is common across this spectrum of response is a feeling that science education currently faces a range of challenges.
Students commonly find the subject – matter of science to be abstract,couched in complex language, and too often of insufficient immediate interest. This can lead to a lower than desired attainment in examinations and hence to a disinclination to continue the study of science beyond whatis mandatory. The teaching of science requires a broad range of knowledge at some considerable depth of understanding, conditions often not supported by the ‘modular’ structures of courses provided by many universities.
Given the high level of employability achieved by those with a background in science, good teachers are hard to recruit and retain in many countries. These problems in the learning and teaching of science have their roots in the nature of the science curriculum at all levels of educational systems. The curriculum can, in broad terms, be described as ‘sedimentary,’ meaning that information is continuously added to it, producing an incoherence of content and an excessive load of isolated ‘facts.’ This situation is made more demanding by the increasing insistence on ‘accountability’ by educational systems to government agencies, leading to an over-emphasis on an assessment of students’ knowledge of these facts.
One way out of the conundrum facing science education is to make it much more ‘authentic:’ as closely alike the conduct of science per se as is possible under the current conditions of mass education. A more authentic science education would have a number of characteristics. First, it would more faithfully represent the processes by which science is conducted and its results are socially accepted: it should be more historically and philosophically valid. Second, it would reflect the core element of creativity that has made science one of the major cultural achievements of humanity in recent centuries. Third, it would provide a minimalist network of ideas with which to provide satisfactory explanations of phenomena in the world as experienced. Lastly, it would be capable of underpinning those technological solutions to human problems that are the basis of prosperous economies, social well being, and the health of individuals.
This paper suggests that models and modelling can form one basis for such a curriculum.