Integration: An approach to Science in primary schooling

Asia-Pacific Forum on Science Learning and Teaching, Volume 2, Issue 1, Article 10 (Jun., 2001)
Peter J FENSHAM
Integration: An approach to Science in primary schooling

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HISTORICAL BACKGROUND : 1960 To 1990
- Background
Science in relation to primary schooling was first generally acknowledged in the 1960s (Osborne and Simon, 1996). Well-funded large project teams were established in a number of countries to develop curriculum materials for use in these early years of schooling. In this remarkable period of science curriculum reform, it is, however, important to note that these primary projects followed, rather than led, earlier projects that were developing, or had developed materials for the sciences in secondary schooling. Thus these secondary projects had already clearly defined what characteristic of Science these new materials would promote in the secondary years. Science was essentially to be a body of conceptual knowledge.
What then could these second phase projects define as the characteristic of Science for the primary years? The answer that triumphed on both sides of the Atlantic, and in many other countries linked to these sources, was what became known as the "processes of science". Science-A Process Approach in the USA and Science 5 to 13 in England and Wales epitomised this emphasis on content-free processes among which were observing, classifying, measuring, hypothesising, inferring and predicting. This decision may, in part, have been deferential to the fact that teachers in primary schools in general had (and still have) weak conceptual backgrounds in the sciences. In addition, they lacked (and still lack) confidence about teaching it.
In perhaps another deference to these teachers concerns about science and its teaching, several countries placed science into their curriculum of primary schooling in a new subject that was a combination or an integration of science with the social sciences. In Thailand the subject was called Life Experiences, and in the Scandinavian countries it was called Orienteering (as in the sport with the same name), which was meant to refer to the ways the natural and social science can contribute to making one's way in the world.

In other countries, Science could be either a distinct and separate subject or it could be taught in a manner that described by those teachers as an "integrated" way, which again usually meant an association with social studies.
During this first period of recognition of Science in primary schooling there was, in many countries, no strong pressure for schools and teachers to make Science a central or core feature of the primary child's learning. Enthusiastic teachers with confidence about Science did teach science, and found its topics could attract great interest among their students. For them, the processes were learnt naturally as they engaged their students in questions of inquiry about the particular natural phenomena they were able to introduce into their classrooms. For most primary teachers, for whom Science did not have positive associations, science education became more and more marginalised in the students' learning experiences. Furthermore, the definition of primary science as a set of essentially content free processes encouraged a number of teachers, who did take their science education responsibilities seriously, to recognise that these could be fulfilled by engaging their students in familiar social contexts, just as well as by using natural science ones about which they personally felt less confident. Even when these social contexts did also have natural science aspects, teachers did not find it easy to shift the focus of their teaching to these aspects, and this may be because the science in real world human situations is, in fact, often very complex.