STATEMENT OF THE PHILOSOPHY

The Physics Department believes that science should be accessible to all students; the program acknowledges the needs of students with varying science education backgrounds. The Physics courses that I teach contain the components which integrate the study of nature, particularly matter, energy, and integrated systems. The curriculum is designed to assist in the development of students who are science literate and for the provision of a strong foundation for further study in science. The classes embrace the hands-on and minds-on approach to delivery. This emphasis on experiential or lab work reflects my belief that "discovery" plays as strong a role in the learning process as traditional approaches to academic learning. Students are provided a wide variety of experimental opportunities which establish a foundation for scientific investigation and further study. My goal is to give students the knowledge and skills that will enable them to understand and appreciate our rapidly changing world.

Science seeks to discover and formulate in general terms the conditions under
which events occur. Note that there is no limit on the kinds of events scientists investigate, nor on what procedures are essentially scientific, nor on the scope of science. It seems to be convenient to divide the sciences into branches, like that on a tree, which are differentiated by their methods and focus of interest. The branches may encounter different problems; the astronomer cannot experiment; the geneticist can predict only probabilities; the atomic physicist must postulate entities he can never observe; but none of these are inherently unreliable or excludes them from the realm of science. We should not forget the stereotype of the scientist as the man in a white lab coat mixing chemicals in a test tube. There is no single scientific method other than the unremitting criticism of evidence and reasoning in every way possible.

Let us also not forget that scientists are human beings. That means that their judgment may be biased, their selection of problems may be whimsical, their assessment of evidence may be faulty, their determination of facts may be subjective, their motivation may be suspect, and their observations may be distorted by their values. But these factors may all be made explicit, and controlled. Science is a social and self- corrective enterprise. But science is entirely a human enterprise. The objectives of science are to describe, explain, understand, investigate, predict, and control, and these are characteristically human goals. The ideals of science are reliability, definiteness, precision, objectivity or inter-subjectivity, testability, self-correctiveness, comprehensiveness or universality, and systematic coherence. Science tries to see what is general in particular experiences. But there is a catch, the particular thing always has more than one general aspect or property. No description can succeed in telling all that can be said about a particular experience or event. When human actions are being characterized, varying descriptions will result in different interpretations. A theory, like a description, is not mechanically dictated by the facts, but is selected in order to advance our objectives. It is the product of human ingenuity and creativity.

Many areas of scientific inquiry run into various problems getting at the facts. There is no one criterion for scientific methodology, and there are many constituents which enter into the determination of what is a fact. The Collaborative efforts, which guide us in the determination of the facts is the essence of scientific activity. We must be ever wary of the common misconceptions in order to be of maximum usefulness in acquiring and organizing knowledge for our TAS students. Ideally science explains facts by embedding it within appropriate experiences and supplying the framework for all learners!

Science Improvement Plan : A K-12 Collaborative Science Project

1. Workshops for the parents, administrators, staff and school board

2. Create a School Alliance for Science project

3. Develop resource personnel at each of the elementary schools

4. Unit and Module development for hands-on activities - example prepackaged curriculum units

5. Offer mini courses to the staff

6. Develop a science equipment sharing network

7. Change attitudes and develop a continued support system for staff

8. Look for possible funding through grant processes

9. Enhance K-12 curriculum that is coordinated throughout

10. Develop methods to get away from reading or doing cookbook science

11. Develop small cooperative learning groups

12. Have lab facilities with integrated technology

13. Look for possible cross-curricular integration of courses