Just what are the Natural Sciences?
  • Physics
  • Chemistry
  • Biology
  • Environmental science

What about...
  • Astronomy?
  • Geology?
  • Medicine?
  • Engineering?
  • others?
Hand/House activity
  1. Draw a hand
  2. Draw a house
  3. Draw an image that symbolizes math
  4. Draw an image that symbolizes science
  5. List words that describe a scientist
  6. If time allows, draw a scientist

save your responses for later in the class...back to our questions:
Why do we refer to Natural Science - why "nature"?
Study of the world & patterns in it...leading to generalizations about regularity of these patterns 

                  (What knowledge area addresses patterns?)    

The PATTERNS DESCRIBE, in order to EXPLAIN the NATURAL WORLD...
               How would you modify this statement?


                    How does this compare to patterns/classification in general?
                                                i.e, Sensing --> Analyzing --> Naming
Refining the concept of science
Science as a snapshot - linked to context (in time and place)...

  • Arrange into subgroups by science course and/or section - 5-6/group
  • Think back to your resources/experiences in science class at WFS
  • Briefly note the groups responses to the following:
  1. To do research in science, what would be the first steps?
  2. What is the relative importance of (a) prior knowledge, (b) current understandings and (c) hypothesizing on the future?
  3. What makes a good or bad hypothesis?
  4. Can you recall any one ingenious example of research in science?
  5. Is there a connection between the researcher and the science results?
  6. Are there other roles for scientists besides researcher?
Obsolete science activity
  • Remain in your subgroups
  • Choose one theory from your card and do a very quick web search to summarize it
  • Prepare a brief summary of the concept and share your thoughts as to where/what the weak links in the theory turned out to be.
Further refinement - Is science public knowledge?
Consider the various "types" of scientists:
                               Experimental
                               Theoretical
                                Field

                                Applied
What links them together or distinguishes them from each other?

Follow-up, Hand and House
  • Compare/contrast with others
  • Any recurring patterns/symbols?


So...who is a scientist and what does a scientist do?
(As an interesting - and relevant - aside, with regard to hypothesis testing, where does the idea of a "failed" hypothesis come from?  Is it a valid notion?  Is a valuable notion?)
Back to the question - who/what is a scientist?
What about the contributions of a collective effort?
Can this effort be interdisciplinary?
Let's return to thinking about theories, the work of scientists - 
we looked at the obsolete, but how about the "good" theories - 
what are the defining features?  


Did any of the obsolete theories have these features?
Finally, how does a theory fit in with the methods/process of science?  Let's start with the overly simplified (and over-taught) and progress from there.
(a)  Too simple
                OBS-->HYPOTH-->TEST-->THEORY-*->LAW
(b)  (only a little) Better
                OBS-->HYPOTH-->TEST-->RETEST -->THEORY-*->LAW
(c)  (only a little bit more) Better
                 OBS-->HYPOTH-->TEST-->REHYPOTH-->RETEST -->THEORY-*->LAW
(d)  More accurate in language
                 FACT/OBS-->HYPOTH-->TEST-->REHYPOTH-->RETEST -->LAW-->THEORY
          (recognize synonymous)                                                                                                                                                      (recurring facts) 
(e)  Need to drop the linearity as well - more like a web
(f)   And add all of the other sources of knowledge  - models, imagination, 
        metaphor, serendipity...
To conclude (it really never ends, does it - so to think about for next time)...


Is science discovered or constructed?  Role of falsification? Paradigm shifts?