---
title: "Science education"
chunk: 1/6
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_education"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:18:54.994028+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

Science education is the teaching and learning of science to school children, college students, or adults within the general public. The field of science education includes work in science content, science process (the scientific method), some social science, and some teaching pedagogy. 
The standards for science education provide expectations for the development of understanding for students through the entire course of their K-12 education and beyond. The traditional subjects included in the standards are physical, life, earth, space, and human sciences.

== Historical background ==
The first person credited with being employed as a science teacher in a British public school was William Sharp, who left the job at Rugby School in 1850 after establishing science to the curriculum. Sharp is said to have established a model for science to be taught throughout the British public school system.
The British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS) published a report in 1867 calling for the teaching of "pure science" and training of the "scientific habit of mind." The progressive education movement supported the ideology of mental training through the sciences. BAAS emphasized separate pre-professional training in secondary science education. In this way, future BAAS members could be prepared.
The initial development of science teaching was slowed by the lack of qualified teachers. One key development was the founding of the first London School Board in 1870, which discussed the school curriculum; another was the initiation of courses to supply the country with trained science teachers. In both cases the influence of Thomas Henry Huxley. John Tyndall was also influential in the teaching of physical science.
In the United States, science education was a scatter of subjects prior to its standardization in the 1890s. The development of a science curriculum emerged gradually after extended debate between two ideologies, citizen science and pre-professional training. As a result of a conference of thirty leading secondary and college educators in Florida, the National Education Association appointed a Committee of Ten in 1892, which had authority to organize future meetings and appoint subject matter committees of the major subjects taught in secondary schools. The committee was composed of ten educators and chaired by Charles Eliot of Harvard University. The Committee of Ten appointed nine conferences committees: Latin; Greek; English; Other Modern Languages; Mathematics; History; Civil Government and Political Economy; physics, astronomy, and chemistry; natural history; and geography. Each committee was composed of ten leading specialists from colleges, normal schools, and secondary schools. Committee reports were submitted to the Committee of Ten, which met for four days in New York City, to create a comprehensive report. In 1894, the NEA published the results of the work of these conference committees.
According to the Committee of Ten, the goal of high school was to prepare all students to do well in life, contributing to their well-being and the good of society. Another goal was to prepare some students to succeed in college.
This committee supported the citizen science approach focused on mental training and withheld performance in science studies from consideration for college entrance. The BAAS encouraged their longer standing model in the UK. The US adopted a curriculum was characterized as follows:

Elementary science should focus on simple natural phenomena (nature study) by means of experiments carried out "in-the-field."
Secondary science should focus on laboratory work and the committee's prepared lists of specific experiments
Teaching of facts and principles
College preparation
The format of shared mental training and pre-professional training consistently dominated the curriculum from its inception to now. However, the movement to incorporate a humanistic approach, such as inclusion of the arts (S.T.E.A.M.), science, technology, society and environment education is growing and being implemented more broadly in the late 20th century. Reports by the American Academy for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), including Project 2061, and by the National Committee on Science Education Standards and Assessment detail goals for science education that link classroom science to practical applications and societal implications.

== Fields of science education ==

Science is a universal subject that spans the branch of knowledge that examines the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment. Science education is most commonly broken down into the following three fields: Biology, chemistry, and physics.  Additionally, there is a large body of scientific literature that advocates the inclusion of teaching the Nature of Science, which is slowly being adopted into the national curricula.

=== Physics education ===

Physics education is characterized by the study of science that deals with matter and energy, and their interactions.
Physics First, a program endorsed by the American Association of Physics Teachers, is a curriculum in which 9th grade students take an introductory physics course. The purpose is to enrich students' understanding of physics, and allow for more detail to be taught in subsequent high school biology and chemistry classes. It also aims to increase the number of students who go on to take 12th grade physics or AP Physics, which are generally elective courses in American high schools.[22]
Physics education in high schools in the United States has suffered the last twenty years because many states now only require three sciences, which can be satisfied by earth/physical science, chemistry, and biology. The fact that many students do not take physics in high school makes it more difficult for those students to take scientific courses in college.
At the university/college level, using appropriate technology-related projects to spark non-physics majors' interest in learning physics has been shown to be successful.[23] This is a potential opportunity to forge the connection between physics and social benefit.

=== Chemistry education ===