The aim of science education in the New Zealand curriculum is to advance learning in
science by:
• helping students to develop knowledge and a coherent understanding of the living,
physical, material, and technological components of their environment;
• encouraging students to develop skills for investigating the living, physical, material, and
technological components of their environment in scientific ways;
• providing opportunities for students to develop the attitudes on which scientific
investigation depends;
• promoting science as an activity that is carried out by all people as part of their everyday
life;
• portraying science as both a process and a set of ideas which have been constructed by
people to explain everyday and unfamiliar phenomena;
• encouraging students to consider the ways in which people have used scientific
knowledge and methods to meet particular needs;
• developing students’ understanding of the evolving nature of science and technology;
• assisting students to use scientific knowledge and skills to make decisions about the
usefulness and worth of ideas;
• helping students to explore issues and to make responsible and considered decisions
about the use of science and technology in the environment;
• developing students’ understanding of the different ways people influence, and are
influenced by, science and technology;
• nurturing scientific talent to ensure a future scientific community;
• developing students’ interest in and understanding of the knowledge and processes of
science which form the basis of many of their future careers.