What once made sense makes sense no more; instead, introduce children to science by teaching them genetics, geology, astronomy, neuroscience, medicine, material science and even quantum theory.
Once you know your biology, chemistry and physics, so the argument goes, you can then go on to study more specialised sciences later. It is best to get the basics right by receiving a good grounding in biology, chemistry and physics first. That stands you in good stead to be a natural scientist of any stripe.
It is an argument that doesn’t properly recognise the dazzling, intermingled, knotty landscape of the natural sciences: the brilliance that comes from twisting together astronomical models with biological knowledge in the search for extraterrestrial life or modelling vascular systems with the equations of fluid dynamics. It pretends to prepare budding scientists for the higgledy-piggedlyness of real science by giving them some fundamentals first: every one of them the same little bit of everything to start with. In reality, this does little more than firmly burn the boundaries between the three ‘main sciences’ into the minds of the young.
The argument has a deep hold within educational establishments and, as such, is part of the old, invisible defences that have shielded the natural sciences from other disciplines, holding them up as exemplars for others. This has possibly hindered, for instance, the development of quantum models in psychology or an interdisciplinary approach to climate change. Social scientists brought up in this environment have modelled their own methods on those of the fundamental sciences. Economics has progressed as a result, for example—but has also been devastatingly stunted by—the desperate desire of its adherents to be scientifically rigorous—that is, to be mathematical, just like physics.
The argument only allows for one aim of education in science—to prepare youngsters to learn more science later—what should they learn? In comparison, we teach children literacy skills in English lessons and arithmetic in mathematics lessons primarily to prepare children for all walks of life—most especially children who aren’t going to write books or prove new mathematical theorems. The majority of youngsters do not go on to study science at university and the brutal dominance of biology, chemistry and physics on the school system all too often leaves an important question unasked: what scientific knowledge is it most important for them to have? What science do we want to improve understanding of science in the general public?
It turns out that a tour of 16th to 19th century mechanics—every English 16-year-old these days is put through the basics of energy conservation and Newton’s laws of motion—doesn’t prepare young people to appreciate modern scientific advances or engage with scientific issues. On the other hand, today’s 16-year-olds are very well placed, as it so happens, to appreciate the problem of meeting the global energy demand, or to assess the dangers of radioactive rocks in Aberdeen homes. The GCSE topics of electromagnetic waves, radioactivity and energy resources are much more important than those of forces and energy conservation from the perspective of educating the general public. With this consideration in mind, the GCSE physics should perhaps also include particle physics (should we build another particle accelerator?) and quantum theory (how does a quantum computer work?) The point is, of course, we don’t have—and never have had—this consideration in mind when developing science curricula.
It isn’t even true that GCSEs and A-levels in physics, biology and chemistry provide the best preparation for those who may later pursue a scientific career. For one thing, modern science is extremely dependent on collaboration and cooperation. At its heart is work within and between teams of scientists. Our society is becoming ever more appreciating of the value diversity, of many kinds, brings to teamwork. A diversity of training is a potential advantage of scientific teams.
Team members most usually need, of course, a solid and deep training their particular specialism. But here’s the point—school science is so basic, from the perspective of professionals—that it can fairly easily be gained at a later stage. You don’t need a GCSE in biology at the age of 16, to become a biologist. In the USA, specialist training in science starts much later: university students can take preliminary courses in the sciences that require no prior knowledge and go on to major in them. Most well-educated adults, after all, can learn the functions of the different parts of a cell in less than an hour. Good education is absolutely invaluable when preparing school children to become scientists, but it is strange that we suppose—and have done so for a long time—that this education comprises of learning a particular set of facts that can be learned more quickly when you are a little older.
This glorified collection of facts is a small subset of what specialists end up knowing and an incredibly tiny subset of current science. The vastness of today’s science is not perhaps even appreciated by the majority of professional scientists themselves. Three GCSEs are but tiny, tiny drops in this ocean. We all know this tiny subset of facts is fundamental to the rest, but only because we’ve been told so. When you read a spreadsheet summary of them—as so many teachers have—it neither appears that they are the natural basis to all of science nor that they serve as a good basis from an educational perspective. There are no naturally-given building blocks for the entirety of science and many, many ways of navigating through the sea of scientific knowledge as a learner or a researcher. There are more tangible sciences, such as material science, for example, that can provide a more exciting and accessible introduction to science for many children. Another possibility is to partition school science by the big problems being tackled by today’s scientists: climate change, antibiotic resistance, eradication of malaria, mental health, sanitation, disposal of waste, food shortages,…
The three-fold division into biology, chemistry and physics is, at the very most, 220 years old, when chemistry emerged from alchemy and natural philosophy as a discipline in its own right. Even then, it did not outrank geology, which was better represented at universities than it is now and well-funded by industry on account of its importance to mining. By the end of the nineteenth century, although the availability and quality of science education varied, some schools were teaching courses in botany, natural history, Earth sciences, mechanics, physics or chemistry. Children of the first half of the twentieth century were required to take some instruction in science or mathematics to obtain the school certificate. The criteria could be passed by taking, amongst other things, botany, domestic science, mechanics or physics-with-chemistry.
It was only in the 1950s, with the introduction of the O-level qualification, that the sciences were so sharply reduced to biology, chemistry and physics and the tripartite division was drawn deeply in the British psyche. Some attempts were made to scrap these false dividing lines in the 1980s: the new GCSEs included general qualifications in science and the sciences were merged on the timetable. The majority of state schools today (although not independent schools) still contain only “science” on the timetables of children aged 11 to 13. It is a scam: each and every lesson is either one in biology, chemistry and physics but remains hidden as science merely to ease staffing. The UK has three times as many biology teachers as physics, although biologists by training, they teach physics lessons called “science”. It would be better to teach students the specialisms of their teachers, as beautiful and as powerful as it is, physics isn’t so important that is should be prioritised over the expertise of staff. A radical solution to the problem of a shortage of physics teachers is simply that we stop teaching physics to 11- and 12-year-olds.
Teach students other sciences instead, without designating or thinking of them as biology, chemistry or physics. As it stands, after all, it is a little strained that we teach the rock cycle of geology under “chemistry” to Year 7 and Year 8 students. Children could learn geology or astronomy as geology and astronomy, without assuming these subjects are somehow dependent on others. These are good introductions to science because of their appeal and accessibility.
As for older students, give them a much broader range of science GCSEs to choose from (laboratory skills, history of science, geology, resistive materials, electronics, genetics,…). Allow students to pick two or three (or more or less) subjects, regardless of whether they cover the basics of natural science or not, whatever we once thought that was.