Science education "not exciting"

Flinders Center for Science Education in the 21st Century director, Professor Martin Westwell, said science education has become "too narrow" and was "failing to excite students" at the Australian Association for Research in Education conference in Canberra yesterday.

He maintained that current science and mathematics curricula narrows students' options for future courses and employment choices. This has led to a 20-year decline in the number of students studying science and mathematics across the globe. However, in Australia there has been a slight increase and the decline may be turning. Westwell thinks this may be due to recent courses in computer graphics and robotics. This will need to be tracked and monitored to ascertain with any certainty.

Westwell advocates teaching university undergraduates a more inquiry-based model, but says that currently universities prefer "lots of content."

I have a university mathematics degree and a Master of Science and I agreed that the current secondary school and university science and mathematics curricula is bland and unexciting. However, science programs at university level are undervalued and under-resourced. Speaking to students, they say that science is "passive" and "lacks initiative." Hence effective science education should provide active and relevant topics that engage students and that lead to desirable employment options.

Science and technology are all pervading. The social impacts of science concern moral issues from genetic engineering to the use of computerised security devices, and affect public's attitudes to the increasing changes in the way we live. Science and technology are therefore should not be isolated branches of learning. There are about 700 sub disciplines of science - all speaking different languages and competing with each other. Greater integration of science and technology into "everyday" relevant life situations and integrated with local and historical events and non-scientific disciplines may go a long way to improving the image of science to a wider audience. It may also value science and popularise it into everyday public debate. Science is much more than climate change and computer graphics. It's related to sports, cooking, gardening, music, art, architecture, ... It is all pervading.

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