The National Science Teachers Association and Geoscience Education

Student attitude toward science and the issue of content relevance in introductory earth science courses

“…The agreement on the need for improvement in college level introductory science courses is prevalent (Brunkhorst, 1991;Hazen & Trefil, 1991;Palmer, 1991;Short, 1990;Tobias, 1992). In the broadest sense, a curriculum based on science literacy, its ideals, and goals, should fix the problem and create well-rounded citizens who can deal with scientific matters as they are presented in the "real-world".…”

“…For example, a geologist may study earthquakes using concepts from physics or may use chemistry to study groundwater. Often though, other sciences fail to incorporate some aspects of the geosciences that are useful in science literacy such as the_context of historical perspective for research, deep and relative time, and descriptive methodologies (Brunkhorst, 1991). The premise of integrating the sciences and spreading out learning in pre-college systems has been addressed by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and by the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA} as found in the Scope, Sequence and Coordination (SSC) approach (Palmer, 1991).…”