Subject specific resources
The Sci21 webcasts are short videos designed to entertain, inform and inspire interest in the science of tomorrow.
Sciblogs brings together the best science bloggers in the country on one website, creating a hub for scientific analysis and discussion and facilitating reader interaction.
The website is for scientists who want to reach out to a general audience to explain their science and how it relates to society. Some Sciblog contributors spend most of their time in the lab or buried in research. Others are authors or entrepreneurs. All of them know what they are talking about and have an interest in engaging in discussion on the big science-related issues facing society.
Science capabilities for citizenship
The science learning area in the New Zealand Curriculum promotes the idea of developing citizenship capabilities. Students (citizens) need to be ready, willing, and able to use their science knowledge. This means dispositions are important. What does this mean for teaching and learning?
Engaging critically with science is a bit like being a book or theatre critic. To do this well, learners need a functional knowledge of science in order to be able to:
say what science is
say what its strengths and weaknesses are
ask informed questions about science issues.
Building knowledge of science content and the processes of science is important, and so is building knowledge of the nature of science. Five science capabilities have been defined to combine learning in these three areas.
The science capabilities help students practice the types of thinking, questioning, and actions needed to become informed citizens. This helps build their knowledge and confidence to use their growing capabilities.
What are these capabilities? How do the capabilities relate to the NOS strand of NZC? & What can you do with the capabilities?
UCCE NoS poster.pdf