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Science IS …

… the excitement of discovery; the delight of awareness; the freedom to create and build knowledge; the ability to explore further; the ability to judge reports about new scientific discoveries and adaptations; the ability to engage in critical dialogue about political and moral dilemmas posed by science and technology, and to arrive at considered decisions.

– Consultation team, Science in the New Zealand Curriculum Review, 2004

The integrating strands of Science in the New Zealand Curriculum are:

• Making sense of the nature of science and its relationship to technology (NoS)
• Developing scientific skills and attitudes (DSSA).

The integrating strands:

• help students think critically about science ideas
• are often neglected in science teaching
• are central to the future, revised science curriculum.

Using both the integrating and contextual strands boosts the overall understanding and teaching of science in the classroom.

To view the science curriculum statement see Science in the New Zealand Curriculum.

The role of the integrating strands

When the the NoS and DSSA strands were first introduced, the belief was that by doing science investigations, students would gain insight into what science is and how scientists work. The integrating strands were mainly used to teach science concepts from the contextual strands.

Research into science education (Hipkins, Bolstad, et al., 2002) has revealed that focusing mainly on the contextual strands limits students’ understandings of what science is, and the development of their scientific skills and attitudes.

If students do not have opportunities to reflect on the diverse ways in which investigations can be carried out, they may also develop restricted and misleading views of how science knowledge is created.

In light of these findings, the Ministry of Education has created the Science IS website, to support teachers’ understandings of the NoS and DSSA strands and how these strands can be integrated with the contextual strands in science activities.

References

Hipkins R., Bolstad R., et. al. (2002). Curriculum, learning and effective pedagogy: A literature review in science education. Wellington: Ministry of Education. Available: http://www.nzcer.org.nz/default.php?products_id=559 [Retrieved 2005, June 3].

Learning contexts for the integrating strands

The integrating strands are taught within the context of the four contextual strands:

• Making sense of the living word (Living world)
• Making sense of the material world (Material world)
• Making sense of the physical world (Physical world)
• Making sense of planet Earth and beyond (Planet Earth).

The contextual strands provide the broad learning contexts in which students can learn about already known science ideas, and, at the same time provide:

• opportunities for exploring how those ideas were developed by scientists
• what they can do to explore science ideas and concepts.