Anne's welcome:
During
the Institute, we'll be exploring together a variety of the ways scientists make sense of change, and working together to facilitate
such explorations in K-12 classrooms. College faculty in physics, chemistry,
psychology, biology, literature, geology and computer science will present
hands-on activities and work with us on adapting these modules to the needs and
interests of your students.
Wil's
translation:
Connecting
our goals and making them more concrete--
Over the course
of this institute, we will focus our attention on four pedagogical domains:
In a sea of
change, how does one find any ground upon which to base action? By looking for
empirical constants in explicitly defined systems, science builds plausible
stories. Built into the scientific process is profound skepticism that
acknowledges a dynamic world.
This skepticism takes the form of falsifiable experimentation
and repeatable testing, which safeguard the process from unfounded proclamations, allow for
continual testing in the face of change, and rely on communal agreement
to substantiate knowledge. Science is not principally a canon of
knowledge and facts, but rather a process by which practitioners communally
come to an understanding about the material world in which we all live. This
understanding takes the form of a story which summarizes and accounts for a set
of observations. With each new
observation the stories either work or need to be revised. Consequently,
science does not claim absolutes, rather only the most useful and inclusive
summaries of observations at any given time. It is a flexible, adaptable
tool for making sense of the world in which we live.
I hope that this
institute will offer opportunities to explore these ideas and to reflect on the
merit and usefulness of science within the realities of your learning environments.