Public Understanding of Science
The Public Understanding of Science
Since the early 1980s what is sometimes called the “Public Understanding of Science Movement” has taken deep roots in many countries. The movement consists of efforts to assess and analyze what information members of the general public have about scientific and technological matters, their understanding of scientific method and other philosophical issues related to science and technology, and their political and cultural attitudes regarding the deployment and regulation of controversial technologies that allegedly pose health or environmental risks or that challenge traditional moral concepts. Specific activities associated with the Public Understanding of Science Movement have included national public opinion surveys, renewed efforts at informal science-learning activities and outreach conducted by museums, learning centers, and scientific institutions; and the creation of a new scholarly subfield with its own specialized journal (The Public Understanding of Science). As well, the pedagogical initiative to re-orient K-12 science instruction toward the objective of promoting “scientific literacy” has been closely associated with the Public Understanding of Science Movement, especially in the United States and Canada. Concern with the public understanding of science has undergirded teachers’ concerns to expand the teaching of science to include instruction in “the nature of science.”
The research theme on the Public Understanding of Science within the CRYSTAL Atlantique framework has two objectives. The theoretical objective is to link the questions, methods, and conclusions from the field of P.U.S. Studies to the issues and results produced by educational research investigating science teaching and science teachers on the other. To date these two bodies of research literature appear to be largely isolated from one another, with little “boundary crossing” between researchers in the two areas. Our first effort at “bridge building” will appear in the journal, Public Understanding of Science, in a manuscript to be, entitled "School Science and Its Controversies; Or, Whatever Happened to Scientific Literacy." For more information, or a copy of the MS, write to Steve Turner at turner@unb.ca. We welcome comments.
The empirical objective of the project is to examine the “public understanding of science” shared by one very significant public: science teachers, educators, and outreach specialists in the Atlantic region. Towards this objective the research team has been designing a questionnaire for administration to science educators. We hope to also use the questionnaire as the focus of group discussions of issues raised by the questionnaire and by the public-understanding-of-science issues. Through these mechanisms, the project hopes to come to a clearer understanding of the attitudes and belief about science, technology, and society that currently inform the teaching and learning of science in the Atlantic region, in both formal and informal learning contexts.
Other projects
Examining and Extending Teachers' Understanding of Science Studies
Understanding the Impact of Technology and Online Learning Studies
What Happens When We Extend Learning Beyond the School Curriculum Studies
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