S.C.I.S. and the Problem of Right and Wrong

Cornelius J. TroostAssistant Professor, University of California,

Los Angeles, California 90024

As director of one of the largest elementary science implementationprojects in the nation, the writer has had the opportunity to learnmuch about one particular science curriculum, namely the ScienceCurriculum Improvement Study (SCIS). The SCIS curriculum, al-though fundamentally sound, poses, in my opinion, a serious treatto a basic principle of science: that is the assumption that we can in-deed know certain facts about nature.The Science Curriculum Improvement Study is an NSF-sponsored

large-scale science curriculum project located at the Lawrence Hallof Science, University of California, Berkeley. The director is Dr.Robert Karplus, a theoretical physicist, who guides a large staff ofscientists, teachers, and psychologists through the long, painstakingprocess of curriculum development.The SCIS program is conceptually integrated, sequential, and

laboratory oriented. Based upon Piaget’s theory of intellectual de-velopment, the curriculum hopefully encourages more rapid develop-ment of children’s thinking from the concrete-operational to theformal operational stage.

In SCIS children develop key concepts like material, property,interaction, system, subsystem, frame of reference, etc. These areorganized in a hierarchy, so that children have an opportunity tobuild complex concepts upon the foundation of facts and simplerconcepts.

In Los Angeles teachers and children are very enthusiastic aboutSCIS. Many believe it to be the most interesting part of a school day.Despite this enthusiasm, I am deeply concerned about several subtleproducts of teaching SCIS. In particular, I am concerned about (1)right and wrong and (2) classroom discipline.When I meet with SCIS teachers, I am continuously greeted by

comments about right and wrong answers. That is, teachers have in-terpreted our in-service workshop training to mean that there are noright and wrong answers in science. They feel happy about that stateof affairs, for if there are no right and wrong answers, they are notheld accountable by the children, and "anything goes" in the class-room. I shocked not a few teachers by informing them of their error�that indeed there are right and wrong answers, and it was the teacher’smoral obligation to avoid teaching falsehoods and to correct childrenwho are wrong.

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Now here is the crux of the problem: Dr. Karplus and his associ-ates have repeatedly emphasized allowing children to freely investi-gate materials and problems in SCIS. They suggest that teachers notstress dogmatic answers; that where value judgments are requiredchildren be encouraged to rely on their own judgments. The difficultylies somewhere on a cognitive plane between situations open to arange of interpretation and those demanding factual answers. In thefirst grade unit, Material Objects, it is easy to allow children to call anobject rough when you may not think it so, for such judgments arerelative and children’s perceptions of physical properties are oftenvery distorted (compared to adult perceptions). But children veryoften commit errors of fact, such as calling an inch a yard, or calling abird a mammal. The SCIS approach, as I see it, is to underplay theseerrors, to overlook them as often as not, for they wish to encouragehabits of inquiry. This is the attitude of large numbers of educatorstoday�the disciples of discovery learning are openly and broadlycultivating this approach on many fronts. Other than the serious crit-icisms of discovery learning posed by Ausubel [I], Cronbach [2],and Wittrock [3], the fallout from teaching in the SCIS manner cen-ters upon the issue of right and wrong and classroom discipline, as Ihave already contended.

First, let me make a case for teaching facts. As the philosopherPeter Caws [4] has stated, all normal people can agree on four mattersof fact: (1) that something exists, (2) that something can be known,(3) that there is something that matters, and (4) that somethingmakes sense and can be reflected upon. This is simply to say thatfacts are a natural part of human knowledge, from names of presi-dents, to dates, geographic locations, specific gravity of various sub-stances, densities, solubility, etc. Even the most abstruse philoso-phers grant the truth of many common sense or empirical facts. Ourvery lives, after all, depend upon our acceptance of certain facts,such as the need to take in food and water, the need to wear heavyclothing when visiting very cold places on the earth, and the need toeliminate bodily waste materials. Facts are too numerous and oftentoo obvious to enumerate any further.To the physicist Henry Margenau [5], facts are events beyond our

control�"they are simply there." Normally one cannot deny a fact.They are immediate perceptions, sensory data, or whole observations.Facts are the rocks upon which theories and hypotheses survive, per-ish, or undergo modification. Concepts, according to Margenau, arethe products of processes of abstraction, sifting, and reasoning. Theyare indeed mental constructs which one cannot observe as one canobserve events and label those "facts."To illustrate the necessary relation existing between facts and con-

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cepts (or theories and principles), look at the concept of the electron.What is an electron? How do we know it exists? Obviously we aredealing with a mental construct quite removed from ordinary percep-tions, yet absolutely dependent upon observational data (facts).Through the work of Davy and Faraday in the nineteenth century,

it was learned that electric current decomposes metallic salts, thusatoms apparently were electrically charged. Franklin found that airconducts electricity, that you can ^charge" an object by rubbing, andthat sparks were associated with electromagnetic waves.

Crookes and Thomson studied the effects of high voltage electricityflowing through different amounts of gas in a glass tube. First the gasitself glowed, but when little gas was present, the glass wall of thetube glowed with a greenish fluorescence. By inserting a metal wallbetween the electrodes, it was demonstrated that a shadow was caston the tube, and a fluorescent coat on the metal screen glowed. Thisindicated clearly that the negative electrode, or cathode, was thesource of the rays. These were called cathode rays.The French physicist Jean Perrin later showed that a magnet

placed over a similar tube would bend the beam of cathode radiationdownward, indicating that the beam consisted of negatively chargedparticles.Thomson performed the definitive experiments on cathode rays,

discovering that they are lighter than atoms, and he concluded thatthe rays or particles are present in all forms of matter, since the radia-tion remained the same regardless of the nature of the cathode ma-terial or the gas. Thomson is therefore credited with the discovery ofthe electron.

Experiments by Millikan yielded the exact mass of the electron.However, later experiments indicated that electrons behave likewaves. Thus, the concept of the electron must include this wave-par-ticle duality, in fact it includes the finding that electrons do not seemto occupy space at all times!Our present concept of the electron may be justly credited to those

great pioneers in physics, men like Faraday, Thomson, Crookes, andMillikan, who went about the matter of discovering the facts viaexperimentation, measurement, and observation.Teachers involved with SCIS can cause more harm than good by

cultivating in children a sense of intellectual omnipotence. If theyhypothesize that mealworms will become butterflies and they die be-fore metamorphosis to the beetle stage, many teachers will let chil-dren go home thinking they were correct, or that their hypothesis wasas good as anyone else’s. This action imparts some stupendous virtueto autonomous thinking, as if it were an end in itself. Unfortunately,

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scientific truth does not necessarily follow from autonomy of thought,and most of us will continue to learn most of what we know fromauthorities who lecture and write books, from degenerate TV pro-grams, and from the multitudinous ordinary experiences such as^hearing it from a neighbor or reading a newspaper."

Discovery learning as carried on in SCIS can be exciting and worth-while, but, in my opinion, the teacher must not relinquish her author-ity, either as a source of knowledge or as a controller of energeticyoung people. Great scientists, like musicians, artists, or mastercraftsmen, have enormous self-discipline. Such discipline, in a milderform, needs to be cultivated actively in the classroom, allowing evenfor the fact that children are not equally endowed in both aptitudesand ability to master the skills of self-discipline.

Anti-authoritarianism is rampant in today^s society, and one seesthis trend in its most virulent form on the college campus. Childrencan be taught to respect intellectual authority through science�to re-spect Newton or Einstein for their brilliant insights into nature, torespect those who pursue truth with an open mind, honesty, andpatience.A teacher in our SCIS workshop this summer challenged my posi-

tion on authority, saying that all truth is relative, so there is no rightand wrong, therefore, no one should set himself up as an authority. Ithink I adequately refuted this teachers argument by simply point-ing to the fact that, after all, the sun was shining and we were talkingto each other. I think the whole group saw my point, with the excep-tion of a few who are intolerant toward all authority. Regardless,Einstein will remain an authority on relativity, Russell an authorityin the field of philosophy, and Von Braun an authority on rocket con-struction.

Children enjoy making "discoveries." They can continue to do so,but every teacher must examine skeptically her own interpretation ofhow to teach a new program. Her approach may be misguided andnegative, promoting arrogance, vulgarity, and egocentricity insteadof respectful criticism, tact, caution, good manners, and concern forhuman dignity.

Constructive authority, laws, rules and regulations are essential toany society. The inquiry or discovery approach must not be used toencourage the development of a new generation of nihilists and politi-cal radicals, whether white or black. It should not be necessary foranyone to warn teachers about hidden dangers in a new approach toeducating children, but there is a profound need for character in ourpeople, for honesty, integrity, and respect. The degree of autonomygiven learners must be determined carefully by each teacher, for her

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influence is substantial. Let us go beyond scientific literacy as a goal�let us contribute to the intellectual and moral growth of betterhuman beings.

BIBLIOGRAPHY[1] AXJSUBEL, DAVID P., "Some Psychological and Educational Limitations of

Learning by Discovery." The Arithmetic Teacher, Vol. II, 1964, pp. 290-302.[2] CRONBACH, LEE J., "The Logic of Experiments on Discovery" in Learning by

Discovery�A Critical Appraisal, Chicago: Rand McNally and Co., 1966.[3] WITTROCK, M. C., "The Learning by Discovery Hypothesis" in Learning by

Discovery�A Critical Appraisal, Chicago: Rand McNally and Co., 1966.[4] CAWS, PETER, The Philosophy of Science, New York: D. Van Nostrand Co.,

Inc., 1965, p. 13.[5] MARGENAU, HENRY, Open Vistas, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961,

pp. 4-38

ENERGY RELEASE IN CELLSThe operation of a new energy form in biological systems has been discovered

after a 20 year quest at the University of Wisconsin’s Institute for EnzymeResearch. Drs. David E. Green and John H. Young revealed the mechanism bywhich energy is transformed in the cell’s powerplants�the mitochondria.

"This is probably the key to energy transformation in all the cell’s membranesystems, be it stomach secretion or nerve impulse transmission," said Green.The problem of how energy is transformed in living membrane systems

stumped researchers until the introduction of the electron microscope in the early^60s."With the high magnification," Green explained, "we saw the toadstool-like

machines which fit together like bricks in a wall to make up the mitochondrion^smembrane."When better methods for rapidly fixing mitochondria for study were devel-

oped, we could actually see these mitochondrial machines at work."The researchers first found that these tiny machines undergo rhythmic pulsa-

tions, much like the opening and closing of an umbrella.Subsequently, they observed that these structural changes always accom-

panied energy transformation."These pulsations," noted Young, also with Wisconsin^ Theoretical Chemis-

try Institute, "led to our recent discovery that protein systems can becomeexcited by oxidation just as simple molecules can be excited by light."The energy stored in these excited machines is then used to perform work. In

the case of the mitochondria, work constitutes either active transport or themanufacturing of ATP, an energy storing molecule. Green and Young describedhow active transport�the movement of chemicals through a living membrane�can be explained by their model.The Wisconsin team, composed of Green, Young, George Blondin, Martin Lee,

Gary Vanderkooi, and David Allmann, are now directing their attention to thelast key piece of the puzzle�how the mitochondrial machine in the excited statecan make ATP."We haven^t yet devised a model to describe how this is done," Green said,

"but we feel sure the pattern already established for active transport will pointthe way to the solution."