Nature of Science

If a colleague were to say to me that students don't need to understand the nature of science, I would disagree with them. The ideas behind the nature of science are what drives new innovations throughout the world.

Science relies on people asking questions. In the article "Understanding Science 101", the author provided the following items in a checklist: focuses on the natural world, aims to explain the natural world, uses testable idea, relies on evidence, involves the scientific community, leads to ongoing research, and benefits from scientific behavior.

As I read through those checklist items, I try to relate them back to what we do in my 3rd grade science room. These are the ideas that I try to get across to my students whenever we are wondering how something works or why something is the way it is. We try hard to focus on uses testable ideas and relies on evidence. I want my students to know many ideas in science can be tested to decide if they are true, and that evidence is needed to support a claim. But the biggest part of Science is asking the question of how or why does something happen. Understanding the nature of science is very important in any classroom.