The University of Akron

Using a Science-Technology-Society approach in the teaching of science results in an increase in the number of students taking additional science courses and advanced level courses, as well as changing students' attitudes towards science and their understanding of the nature of science and its relationship to technology and societal .issues.

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Science Technology Society

Research Findings:
Studies in this area have become much more numerous in the past few years.. Although most comparative studies have been performed by one major researcher and his graduate students for children in grades four through nine, the National Research Council’s National Science Education endorse the inclusion of science, technology, and society (STS) issues in curriculum at all grade levels. Furthermore, AAAS’s Project 2061 is a national effort that illustrates the use of the STS approach in the United States, and curriculum developers in Canada and the United Kingdom include this approach in widely used national curriculum projects at the secondary level. In the U.S. new curricula have been developed by the ACS in chemistry at the middle school and high school levels.

There is little evidence that STS increases student’s knowledge of facts, concepts, or principles, but no evidence that it decreases it. When STS is integrated into the curriculum as a major thrust (not as vignettes), positive outcomes occur. These include an increase in understanding the process of science. Such as analyzing experimental data, designing and testing the validity of proposed explanations, communicating experimental results, and using them for evidence for their explanations. Students’ creativity and attitudes toward science improve as well. An additional benefit in Canada was improving students’ understanding sciences as a way of knowing. In the United Kingdom, STS was found to dramatically increase the number of Studies in this area have become students taking additional science courses.

In the Classroom:
Educators should consider using Science-Technology-Society approaches as a way to make science more relevant to students' lives. Although STS issues can be included as vignettes as a small part of the curriculum, recent studies have shown that a more effective approach is to use STS as an entire course that has as its objectives the development of an appreciation of the interactive nature of science, technology, and society; knowledge of technology as the application of science; the ability to respond critically to technology issues; or a combination of these later goals with teaching science concepts and principles.