IBSE Final

Chapter 7 Teaching Science as Inquiry and Developing 21st-Century Skills

tHE tEACHING OF SCIENCE: 21 st-CENTURY PERSPECTIVES 139

assessments, textbooks, and classroom practices give little evidence of the real-

ization of this goal.

In this chapter, I have restated and provided details of what we mean by

teaching science as inquiry. Appropriately viewed, inquiry as science content

and inquiry as teaching strategies are two sides of a single coin. Teaching science

as inquiry means providing students with diverse opportunities to develop the

abilities and understandings of scientific inquiry while also learning the funda-

mental subject matter of science. The teaching strategies that provide students

those opportunities are found in varied activities, laboratory investigations,

internet use, and student-initiated inquiries, all presented in integrated instruc-

tional sequence. Science teachers know this simple educational insight. Now we

are called to the new challenges of the 21st century. We have the opportunity

to show that the science education community will respond to a great national

need by teaching science as inquiry.

assessments, textbooks, and classroom practices give little evidence of the real-