Hoh, Yin Kiong

It has been seen that few young people are interested in Science. In fact, very few actually pursue science as a career and from this pool; boys are usually more likely to take the science route as compared to girls (Lee, 1998). In addition, comments about Scientists and the nature of their work show narrow-minded perceptions. In a survey commissioned by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, it has been found that college and high school students share a common preconceived stereotype of scientists. The typical stereotype is mostly a queer, eccentric male (with “mad scientists” looks and “Einstein hairdos”) wearing a white coat. Consequently, students having negative images of scientists can discourage them from pursuing careers in the sciences (Gardner, 1986; Mason, 1986). Hence, an authentic and engaging worldview of scientists is critical for motivating students‟ interests toward pursuing careers in science, mathematics, and engineering where there is a critical shortage of trained professionals (Jones and Bangert, 2006). Over the last 10 years, numerous articles on strategies that can be used to help dispel the various misconceptions that children in particular have about Scientists have been published. These include highlighting the achievements of women in Science with special mention of the various female Nobel Prize winners (Hoh and Boo, 2003), Scientists-Student partnerships (Flick, 1990; Kesselheim, 1998) and the use of literature (Melber, 2003). In particular, the use of literature about Scientists for children seems to be a rather unique way to introduce Science to children (Melber, 2003). In this paper, the “Draw a Scientist-Checklist (DAST-C)” (Chambers, 1983) was used to elicit children‟s perceptions of Scientists. A literature programme was then used as an intervention to help dispel the various myths of Scientists. These literature sources included autobiographies, information texts and Internet websites.

This paper describes a workshop activity the author has carried out with 80 high school science teachers to enable them to overcome their stereotypical perceptions of engineers and engineering. The activity introduced them to the biographies of prominent women in engineering, and raised their awareness of these female engineers’ contributions to engineering and society. The results showed that the activity was effective in dispelling the participants’ perceptions of engineers as men. For example, the percentage of participants who depicted engineers as men decreased from 96.3% before the intervention to 48.8% after the intervention (p < 0.01). The results also showed that the activity was effective in countering the participants’ perceptions of the nature of engineering jobs. For example, the percentage of participants who portrayed engineers engaged in building or repairing decreased from 70.0% before the intervention to 3.8% after the intervention (p < 0.01). The female engineers featured in this activity cited the role of their parents or teachers in encouraging their pursuit of an engineering career. They held senior positions in academia, government or industry. They acknowledged that they had encouraged difficulties at their workplaces but they also mentioned progress made towards acceptance and equality.

The teaching of science, with its emphasis on the understanding of its fundamental concepts and principles, may prevent learners from acquiring a complete picture of how science functions. To complete this picture, there can be better utilization of history of science (HOS) in science instruction as students will have a humanized perspective to science as well as an enhanced understanding of its content and its nature. This is possible as HOS will develop an individual’s understanding in the conceptual, procedural and contextual facets of science. With this pedagogical approach in mind, an investigation, involving 26 junior college level students, was done and this investigation sought to ascertain the impact of using historical elements in the teaching of a biological concept, i.e. the structure of DNA. The following inferences were made from the findings of the investigation. Firstly, HOS neither lowered the interests of the students nor affected them from successful acquisition of the content knowledge. Secondly, HOS led students through the processes of thinking, investigating and drawing conclusions and henceforth, reinforced their understanding about the procedural facet of science. Thirdly, the glimpses into the world of the scientists might provide learners with a more complete picture of the human element of science and these scientists might even serve as role models to these students. In this way, the infusion of HOS into science instruction may prove to be a useful alternative pedagogical approach that one may adopt in science classroom as students will have a more holistic perspective to the understanding of science.

Informal science education has become a key area of emphasis for providing students with learning experiences that complement or extend what is covered in the science classroom as well as in enthusing them about science in general. In Singapore, informal science education is recognized by schools to be an important aspect of enhancing especially the affective dimension of the learning process. A range of informal science destinations in Singapore are available to cater to the educational needs of students – for example, science center, zoo, bird park, natural history museum, and botanic gardens. Others include destinations where science and technology are used to come up with products for the marketplace – for example, semiconductor industries, soft drinks factories, etc. The wide availability of such destinations for informal science education within the small city-state is one reason why schools have been able to leverage on a diversity of such platforms to organize field trips for their students. This chapter explores the informal science education scene in Singapore. Some points of interest emerging from the establishment of key destinations for informal science learning are also presented.

Gene therapy has fascinated clinicians, scientists, and patients since decades ago because of its potential to treat a disease at the genetic level. This can be achieved in many ways, including replacing a disease-causing gene with a healthy copy. Gene therapy must overcome complex tissue and cellular barriers to introduce genetic modifications into the nucleus of the target cells to drive a high level of gene expression. Moreover, the genetically corrected cells must be present in significantly large numbers in the body to reverse the diseased condition and yet able to escape immunological recognition and survive in the long term to sustain the benefit. This paper reviews the early work as well as recent developments in gene therapy, including improvements to viral vectors and novel treatment strategies, diseases targeted, approved gene therapies, and current challenges and prospects for future progress.

This paper reports on the results of a simple paper-pen questionnaire study involving certain key aspects of the nature of science. The questionnaire covers, among other things, aspects such as uniqueness of the scientific method, objectivity of scientific data, and immutability of scientific laws. The survey was given out to 80 trainee teachers enrolled in a full-time pre-service post graduate diploma in education (secondary) i.e. PGDE (S) programme while they were doing their curriculum studies at the National Institute of Education (NIE), Singapore. A similar questionnaire was given out to 42 in-service teachers at the beginning of their part time Master in Education (Science Education Specialization) i.e., MEd (Sc Ed) course. The views of these trained or in-service teachers were compared with those of the trainee teachers in this paper.

The study investigated the effects of using students' ideas on self-directed learning (SOL) and collaborative learning (CoL). Since the announcement by the Ministry of Education (MOE) in 2009 of a new framework to achieve the desired outcomes of education for 21st century learners, schools have made concerted effort to align their teaching and learning to the new initiative. The intervention used in this study was based on the two principles of Knowledge Building (KB); 1) Diversity of Ideas and 2) Improvable Ideas, proposed by Scardamalia (2002). Students' ideas formed the basis for student interaction. The ideas generated by students were captured using an ICT tool, Knowledge Forum (KF). Three cycles of KB lessons were carried out with a primary 5 class of mixed-abilities students. The results showed that my classroom practice in using KB as an approach to teaching Science enhanced students' engagement, and increased their motivation to learn. The use of KF promoted self-directed learning and collaboration among students. Analysis of two science topics, 'Heart Organ' and 'Human Reproductive System', showed that the number of notes posted by students on the KF platform increased from 44 to 216, network density on reading (these notes) increased from 8.53% to 45.97% and network density on building onto others' notes increased from 1.99o/o to 12.07o/o. Experimental class' academic performance improved more compared to control class from CA 1 (Term) to SA 1 (Term 2) to CA2 (Term 3) with standard mean deviation increasing from 0.09 to 0.45 to 0.55.