Popular Science and Formal Education

The role of popular science in science education is both a means to an end, as well as the end goal itself. On the one hand, the ability and will to understand science in the media is one of the main characteristics of science literacy, which has been the prime goal of science education for the past several decades. On the other hand, popular science is also being used in school science as a teaching strategy, usually to enhance students' interest and motivation by establishing the relevance of science to everyday life, but also as a way to teach specific concepts, update learning materials, and teach about the nature of science.

The importance of science literacy has been highlighted by the major educational documents of the 1990s, including the “benchmarks” of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and their “Science for All Americans” report, as well as the U.S. National Research Council standards. One of the definitions of [Page 590]scientific literacy refers to the ability to critically read and understand a scientific text in the popular press. The British report “Beyond 2000: Science Education for the Future” specifically calls for the incorporation of science in the media into school science to help students gain this ability. However, this enthusiasm at the policy level has not always been translated into operative, systemwide actions. Initiatives for incorporating popular science within school science are sporadic and anecdotal. For this reason, the following short review is very much teacher centered because it is up to teachers to decide if, how often, and in what ways to use popular science in formal science teaching.

We know that teachers use popular science in their teaching based on several kinds of evidence, including reports on teaching strategies that are published in practitioners' journals and a study that documented classroom connections between school science and the everyday world and that identified instances of using popular science in the classroom. Nevertheless, very few studies have systematically examined the question of using popular science in the traditional science classroom. In one study conducted in Northern Ireland among 50 high school science teachers, most declared they were using media in their teaching, via a wide spectrum of teaching strategies. This was usually done out of personal initiative to demonstrate the connection between science and everyday life. A Canadian study found that all 24 teachers interviewed used media in their teaching, with biology teachers doing so more often than physics and chemistry teachers. These teachers usually used print media, with the aim of presenting the connection between science, technology, and society. However, an unpublished thesis by Dickla Elbaz found an inconsistency between the positive attitudes that Israeli high school biology teachers hold toward incorporating popular science in their teaching and their actual teaching, in which popular science is almost absent. The teachers in this study perceive science in the media mainly as a vehicle for enhancing motivation and as an enrichment activity and are not very aware of its role in achieving basic scientific literacy and critical thinking skills.

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