Where is History in the Science Classroom?
Michelle Klosterman, Alumni Graduate Fellow at the University of Florida, is a doctoral candidate in science education researching mass media use in the secondary science classroom.
Few secondary and post-secondary science educators would claim that science is the only discipline students need to understand science. Without reading skills or some knowledge of history, science content alone is insufficient for understanding the larger discipline of science. This makes it all the more remarkable that science teachers fail to incorporate other subjects into their yearly curricula. This failure takes on added significance when one considers that the history of science is at the foundation of U.S. national and state recommendations for science teaching. Unfortunately, teachers often lack the knowledge, ability, or resources to integrate history into secondary science curricula.(1)
History in Science Education in the United States
In 1985, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) sponsored a panel comprised primarily of scientists and post-secondary science educators who developed Project 2061, its goal being to encourage national reform in science education in the United States. The subsequent publication of Science for All Americans outlined their recommendations and included goals for incorporating history into science education. The reasoning was two-fold. First, “generalizations about how the scientific enterprise operates would be empty without concrete examples,” and second, “some episodes in the history of the scientific endeavor are of surpassing significance to our cultural heritage.”(2)
Following Science for All Americans, the National Research Council, a group developed and funded primarily by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Education, published the National Science Education Standards (1996), which still serves today as the primary document guiding instruction in secondary science classrooms in the United States. The National Science Education Standards (NSES) closely mirror the recommendations of the AAAS and reiterate that 10 historical events stand out as culturally significant and should be taught in secondary science classrooms. Additionally, students learn to appreciate that science is a human endeavor and that anyone can practice science. The Standards’ rationale is that “the introduction of historical examples will help students see the scientific enterprise as more philosophical, social, and human.”(3)
In light of the national calls for science educational reform and with the implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, every state in the U.S. was required to develop standards for teaching in all subject areas. In science, this was translated as adapting the NSES to develop a set of state standards for science teaching. Although the NSES echoed the recommendations outlined by the AAAS, individual states were left to interpret those recommendations as deemed appropriate by each state. This resulted in highly variant views of the importance of history in science classrooms. For example, some states only address science, technology, and society from the context of today’s society, completely disregarding the historical perspectives surrounding the development of science. These discordant interpretations of national standards have perpetuated the divide between science and the other disciplines.
The Challenges
Why don’t teachers themselves adopt the NSES or the Benchmarks for Scientific Literacy guidelines rather than their own state standards? By doing this on a national level, science would at last be taught as an interdisciplinary subject rather than as a discrete body of knowledge.
First is the issue of time. A regular school year in the U.S. lasts 180 days. Within that day, a secondary teacher sees a student in his or her class for an average of 45 minutes. In reality, 45 minutes translates into 35 minutes of instructional time once classroom management and review strategies are considered. Further, many hours are spent on school events such as pep rallies, safety drills, science and art fairs, athletics, and so on.
In some states, science teachers are required to teach a minimum of 60 benchmarks for physical science compared to 129 benchmarks for life science. While that may seem like a simple task, the diversity of students in a secondary classroom and the limited amount of class instructional time make those numbers overwhelming.
A lingering issue is how thoroughly each benchmark must be taught, since the requirement to meet accountability standards – as measured by state assessment measures – haunts teachers. Not surprisingly, a teacher trying to cover each of the benchmarks in limited instructional time might resist including instruction on the history of science, especially since the history of science may only be tested every two to three years on the state exam.
While time is the biggest issue for teachers, student motivation also presents a challenge.(4) Students come to science classes expecting to learn basic concepts – not the history behind the concepts. The AAAS recommends that “schools should pick the most important concepts and skills to emphasize so that they can concentrate on the quality of understanding rather than on the quantity of information presented.”(5) Including instruction on the history of science is one way to improve the quality, but the AAAS fails to recognize that teachers face the daily challenge of convincing students of the importance of quality. That is, assuming the teachers themselves have the resources and knowledge to invest in the quality of understanding.
The last obstacle, physical and intellectual resources, may be the least understood and most undervalued challenge facing teachers. Teachers can only teach what they know. Not only is it rare for a science text to offer historical contexts, undergraduate and graduate teacher-preparation programs in the United States typically ignore the history of science. Ironically, the history of education is a staple in teacher-preparation programs, but not the history of science in secondary science education programs.
What now?
Despite these constraints, there are national reports, national standards, and even some state standards that mandate that history be incorporated into science. Recommendations on how this could be done vary from general suggestions by the AAAS to more specific strategies recommended by the National Research Council (NRC).
The AAAS strategies include concentrating on the collection and use of evidence, de-emphasizing the memorization of scientific facts, and using team approaches for exploring science. Each of these suggestions are expected to offer a context for science knowledge and help students “develop a sense of how science really happens…of the growth of scientific ideas, of the twists and turns on the way to our current understanding of such ideas, of the roles played by different investigators and commentators, and of the interplay between evidence and theory over time.”(6)
The AAAS’ suggestions for incorporating history into science education are clearer in Benchmarks for Scientific Literacy and extend beyond suggestions aimed only at classroom teachers. Benchmarks advises teachers to use historical case studies, biographies, and films in science instruction. It also suggests that “…science and history textbooks will need to be modified to include the history of science.”(7)
Not surprisingly, the NSES suggestions resemble those of the AAAS, including case studies, historical vignettes, short stories, and videos. Through these media, “teachers can introduce interesting historical examples of women and men who have made contributions to science.”(8)
Unfortunately, such vague suggestions underscore why many individual states have difficultly adapting the NSES to state guidelines and why teachers find it difficult to incorporate history into science instruction. The issue of disconnected disciplines is more systemic and requires changes that begin with teacher preparation programs.
Using my own experience as an example, I was never required to enroll in a history of science class in either my undergraduate career in engineering or in my graduate career in science education. It was not until my postgraduate degree that I elected to take such a course. If teachers are expected to incorporate history into science instruction, then teacher-preparation programs should require a history of science component. Furthermore, teacher-preparation programs should provide instruction on how teachers can infuse history into the science curriculum.
The reality remains that current accountability trends require American teachers to address each of their state benchmarks, which (although inadequately) include some reference to the history or philosophy of science. Yet, until more practical methods of incorporating history in science instruction are offered, and possibly even required, we will lose the true conceptual understanding of science, the scientific enterprise, and the significance (or insignificance) of our cultural heritage.
For more discussion on history of science in science education, read "Does Science Education Need the History of Science?"
1. Monk, M. & Osborne, M. (1997). “Placing the history and philosophy of science on the curriculum: A model for the development of pedagogy,” Science Education, 81(4), 405-424.
2. AAAS, Science for All Americans (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), p. 145.
3. NRC, National Science Education Standards (Washington, D.C.: National Academy of Sciences, 1996), p.170.
4. Sadler, T.D. (2006). “I won’t last three weeks”: Preservice science teachers reflect on their student-teaching experiences. Journal of Science Teacher Education, 17(3), 217-241.
5. Science for All Americans, p. 198.
6. Science for All Americans, p. 201.
7. AAAS. Benchmarks for scientific literacy, (New York: Oxford University Press., 1993), p.4.
8. National Science Education Standards, p.6.