ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to argue that the centrality of the laboratory in science education leads to an overemphasis on practical work. A critical examination of the arguments for practical work shows that it only has a strictly limited role to play in learning science and that much of it is of little educational value. Instead, students would benefit from more opportunities to engage with the language and discourse of science through reading, writing and discussion. Such work would help them to interpret and understand the meaning of the science, its beauty and its value—an understanding of which existing science curricula singularly fail to achieve. Examples of possible techniques are used to illustrate the argument.
