One of the most important and pervasive goals of schooling is to teach students to think. All school subjects should share in accomplishing this overall goal. Science contributes its unique skills, with its emphasis on hypothesizing, manipulating the physical world and reasoning from data.
The scientific method, scientific thinking and critical thinking have been terms used at various times to describe these science skills. Today the term "science process skills" is commonly used. Popularized by the curriculum project, Science - A Process Approach (SAPA), these skills are defined as a set of broadly transferable abilities, appropriate to many science disciplines and reflective of the behavior of scientists. SAPA grouped process skills into two types-basic and integrated. The basic (simpler) process skills provide a foundation for learning the integrated (more complex) skills. These skills are listed and described below.