1. AARHUS
UNIVERSITY
INTEGRATING IDEAS AND
IDEOLOGIES IN THE CLASSROOM
UNESCO’S PROGRAMME IN INTEGRATED SCIENCE TEACHING 1969-1983
6TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE FOR THE EUROPEAN SOCIETY FOR THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE, LISBON, 5 SEPTEMBER 2014
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Kristian H. Nielsen
Centre for Science Studies
Ny Munkegade 118
DK-8000 Aarhus C
Denmark
E-mail: khn@css.au.dk

2. AARHUS
UNIVERSITY
THE EARLY DAYS OF SCIENCE
EDUCATION AT UNESCO
› Albert Baez, first director of science
education at UNESCO, 1961-67
› Trained physicist, PhD from Stanford, 1950
› Stationed in Baghdad in 1951
› Quaker persuasion
› Education and humanitarism, rather than
physics in the military-industry complex
› Faculty position at MIT, 1959
› Involved in science film-making, 1967-74
› Albert V. Baez Award for Technical Excellence
and Service to Humanity established by the
Hispanic Engineer National Achievement
Awards Corporation, 1995
INTEGRATING IDEAS AND IDEOLOGIES IN THE CLASSROOM 5 SEPTEMBER 2014
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3. AARHUS
UNIVERSITY
IDEOLOGY OF SCIENCE EDUCATION
IN THE EARLY COLD WAR
› Jerrold R. Zacharias
› Physicist at MIT, science education reformer
› Bring postwar research culture to bear on
pressing educational problems
› Big Science for science education
› Broad-based analytical and technical approach
› Government funding, large organizational structures
› Physical Science Study Committe, 1956
› ”Sputnik chok”, October 1957
› System-studies approach
› Using insights of social scientists to enable scientists and
engineers to tackle problems of school learning anew
INTEGRATING IDEAS AND IDEOLOGIES IN THE CLASSROOM 5 SEPTEMBER 2014
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4. AARHUS
UNIVERSITY
IDEOLOGY OF SCIENCE EDUCATION
IN THE EARLY COLD WAR
› ”Engineering rationality” (Rudolph, 2002)
› Objective: increasing the ”productivity” of science education
› Means: curriculum reform
› Reviews of existing textbooks: subject matter sacrificed to pedagogy
› New textbooks focusing on the intellectual content of physics, chemistry, etc.
› Emphasis on the process of science
› Integrated approach to science education
› Science as integrated element of modern society
› Integrating the disciplines in the curriculum
› Scientific inquiry as an integrating feature of science teaching
› Integration of educational research and teaching practices
INTEGRATING IDEAS AND IDEOLOGIES IN THE CLASSROOM 5 SEPTEMBER 2014
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5. AARHUS
UNIVERSITY
UNESCO’S PROGRAM IN INTEGRATED
SCIENCE TEACHING, 1969-1983
› Program launced at planning meeting, 17-19 March 1969
› A series of publications on integrated science teaching
› Technical services to Member States through UNESCO field experts
› Experimental projects for developing new methods and materials
› A series of integrated science workshops (regional and national)
› Objectives
› Integrating science teaching into the overall curriculum
› Developing teaching materials presenting science concepts through unified
approaches: relevance, conceptual schemes, or processual/inquiry
› Learning children to adopt a discovery approach (integrating scientific
approach into everyday existence)
INTEGRATING IDEAS AND IDEOLOGIES IN THE CLASSROOM 5 SEPTEMBER 2014
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6. AARHUS
UNIVERSITY
UNESCO’S PROGRAM IN INTEGRATED
SCIENCE TEACHING, 1969-1983
› Stephen O. Awokoya, second
director of science education at
UNESCO, 1967-
› First Nigerian graduate in chemistry,
1946
› Teaching experiences in Nigeria
› First Minister of Education in Nigeria,
1952
› Member of the Action Group, a Nigerian
political party for independence, 1952
› Comprehensive education as means of
independence and indigenous focused
development
INTEGRATING IDEAS AND IDEOLOGIES IN THE CLASSROOM 5 SEPTEMBER 2014
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7. AARHUS
UNIVERSITY
UNESCO’S PROGRAM IN INTEGRATED
SCIENCE TEACHING, 1969-1983
› ”Belief systems which control learning are often markedly different in
Western and non-Western cultures. For children living in societies which
traditionally are non-scientific in the Western sense, faith in the capacity of
man to discover and interpret the nature of the physical world and thereby
to control it to his personal advantage may imply something of an
intellectual and moral quantum leap. Without such a change, it is possible
to acquire scientific knowledge and techniques, but such learning will
represent nothing more than replacing one authoritarianism for another,
with the new being no less sterile and inhibiting to intellectual
development than the old. Sharpening the sense of curiosity of children in
a manner that leads to their independent and intelligent thinking needs to
be cultivated. Integrated science teaching was identified as being one of
the most promising hopes of achieving such high aims.”
INTEGRATING IDEAS AND IDEOLOGIES IN THE CLASSROOM 5 SEPTEMBER 2014
› Planning meeting, 1969
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8. AARHUS
UNIVERSITY
PROGRAM ACTIVITIES
› The Tel Aviv elementary science teaching project
› ”Our school system has to educate citizens out of an ultra-heterogenous
population to be capable of systematic thinking and to adjust
themselves to a modern pattern of life.”
› Unit on ”the vital needs of living things”: Bacteria on teeth
› Problem-solving by means of experimentation
› Basic knowledge about bacteria
› Dental hygiene
› Elementary scientific study of the Ant Lion, Tanzania
INTEGRATING IDEAS AND IDEOLOGIES IN THE CLASSROOM 5 SEPTEMBER 2014
› Where does he live?
› How does he move?
› Does he like sugar?
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9. AARHUS
UNIVERSITY
ASK THE ANT LION
› ”Occasionally, I meet people who, when they hear about the ant
lion unit, smile benignly, but express their conviction that an
unimportant, low, stupid little ground-dwelling insect like this could
not possibly be a proper object of science instruction in the schools.
What does it accomplish? What is the use?
› My strongest and only argument is a class of children, busily
engaged in experimentation with ant lions; their eager questions,
their attempts to find answers to their problems, their growing
satisfaction at being able to ask the ant lion, and their growing
realization that they do get the answers without being told, but
through their own efforts.”
INTEGRATING IDEAS AND IDEOLOGIES IN THE CLASSROOM 5 SEPTEMBER 2014
› J. Elstgeest, 1971
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10. AARHUS
UNIVERSITY
AFRICAN PRIMARY SCIENCE PROGRAM
› Evaluation of the program
› “Because of the emphasis of the curriculum programme on the
development of the child rather than the concepts of science,
conventional tests of cognitive achievement would be largely
inappropriate.”
› Shift from “consumer-oriented” to “producer-oriented” evaluation
› Do not ask “whether or not the materials have worked in the African
classroom”
› But, rather, “whether or not APSP has contributed significantly to the
production of a core of people within Africa, with experience, expertise and a
mental orientation geared towards continuous curriculum renewal”
› Integrated science teaching for children and their teachers!
INTEGRATING IDEAS AND IDEOLOGIES IN THE CLASSROOM 5 SEPTEMBER 2014
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11. AARHUS
UNIVERSITY
BRAZILIAN EXPERIENCES WITH
INTEGRATED SCIENCE TEACHING
› “Several obstacles were encountered. The measurement of student
achievement is the most common concept of evaluation among
administrators. Therefore, it was necessary to demonstrate that the
financial investment in evaluation was warranted in that quality control
analysis would lead to a greater development of education's potential. It is
also necessary to justify the idea that the money spent in the evaluation of
instruction materials would lead to greater efficiency in their use, so that
teaching and learning could really attain the proposed aims. The efforts of
specialists, the broad bibliography on the subject and the need for
evaluation because of the failure of many projects are slowly changing the
situation. In integrated science, evaluation costs amounted to some 30 per
cent of development costs.”
INTEGRATING IDEAS AND IDEOLOGIES IN THE CLASSROOM 5 SEPTEMBER 2014
› M. Kriisilchik 1977
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12. AARHUS
UNIVERSITY
UNESCO’S ROLE IN INTEGRATED
SCIENCE TEACHING PROGRAMS
› Instrumental in supporting the spread of integrated science
teaching and curriculum reforms across the globe
› Supporting sharing of information and experiences
› Diversity of an integrated approach
› Interpretative flexibility of ”integrated science education”
› Ambiguities of ”integrated science education”
› Evaluation is costly, and the goals can be difficult to point down
› Synonymous with changes in the curriculum and in teaching methods
› The integrated methods places great demands on children and
teachers
INTEGRATING IDEAS AND IDEOLOGIES IN THE CLASSROOM 5 SEPTEMBER 2014
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13. AARHUS
UNIVERSITY
PROBLEMS IN INTEGRATED SCIENCE
EDUCATION
› “The increasing attention paid to "skills" in recent years had
been at the expense of considering the relationship between
knowledge and skills. There has been a tendency to think that
the skills can be acquired in themselves, perhaps in a desire to
get away from 'old-fashioned' teaching of large amounts of
information and concepts. Teacher educators are talking
more about what people can do and are less keen to be seen
worrying about what they know. The question of whether
doing can occur without knowing has meanwhile been
avoided.”
INTEGRATING IDEAS AND IDEOLOGIES IN THE CLASSROOM 5 SEPTEMBER 2014
› C. Sutton, 1977
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14. AARHUS
UNIVERSITY
THANK YOU!
INTEGRATING IDEAS AND IDEOLOGIES IN THE CLASSROOM 8 MAY 2014
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Kristian H. Nielsen
Centre for Science Studies
Ny Munkegade 120-1520
DK-8000 Aarhus C
Denmark
E-mail: khn@css.au.dk