method of science in the middle of the century, The

School Science and Mathematics, Nov 2001 by Oliver, J Steve, Nichols, B Kim

Percy L. Julian said much the same thing in a different tone a month later in the April 1948 issue of SSM. Truly it can be said that the teaching of science in this day is a sacred mission, for if the vision of mankind is to be enlarged so as to see that the search for Truth is synonymous with the search for goodness, you and I must provide the soil in which such dawning visions can blossom and flourish. If, for example, it were formerly merely poor pedagogy to write into our laboratory manual "add a few drops of potassium dichromate and note the green color," it becomes today a distinct crime to deny to the student in this way the use of his own vision for the cultivation of that insight so essential to the preservation of our culture. Similarly the type of object test which saves your time by concentration upon the answer rather than the formulation can be the cruelest disservice to your proud profession. (p. 306-307)

Norman Lowenstein continued in this same vein with a formulation of what it means to teach the scientific method. His article in the May 1948 issue was tided simply, "What Is Scientific Method?" He stated his position in his first sentence: "A fundamental aim of science teaching in high school and college is to develop in the student the mode of thinking which is characteristic of the scientific method." But like many science educators before and since, he recognized a central difficulty in his next paragraph. Unfortunately the question, "What is scientific method?" is as difficult as it is important. The scientific mind cannot be observed in action. Moreover, the scientist himself rarely stops to analyze his own thought processes as he probes the secrets of the universe. His interest, of course, lies in the results of his thinking rather than in the thinking itself. (p. 388)

But as one of the early members of the post-WWII group who would ultimately lead the way to the alphabet curriculum projects of the 1950s and 1960s, Lowenstein created a typology of the different aspects of the teaching of scientific method. He framed this typology around five basic questions. These questions reappeared in many if not all of the later curriculum projects.

1. What is the nature of scientific knowledge?

2. How does scientific knowledge originate?

3. What is the role of deduction in science?

4. What constitutes verification in science?

5. What is an experiment?

Toward the end of his article, Lowenstein offered some answers to the questions he posed. In giving these answers, he showed that he was not a constructivist in the 20th-century meaning of the term, but he did show that he was a teacher who understood the idea of learning through investigation.

In the first place, it is clear that the student learning a science, just as the pioneers in science themselves, is engaged essentially in a process of transforming his common-sense concepts into a more accurate, more consistent and more extensive system of knowledge. The teacher of science, therefore, should try to set in motion in the classroom and school laboratory the same method of investigation which has been responsible for the very existence of science.