ABSTRACT
Science The five units of this chapter on the nature of science (Unit 4.1), biology (Unit 4.2), chemistry (Unit 4.3), physics and astronomy (Unit 4.4), and Earth science (Unit 4.5), attempt to address two fundamental difficulties which science teachers face. The first difficulty is that they have to teach science topics with which they are unfamiliar, or which they did not like particularly when they were studying themselves. The second is that science is a ‘content heavy’ subject and it can be difficult to stand back from the detail and see how all the parts fit together. It is essential for science teachers to have some vision of what the bigger picture is. In fact, given the arguments for 21st Century Science (see Chapter 3), it may well be the bigger picture which becomes the more important one.
