ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the conduct of a school case study made in the course of a multi-site programme of research into precollege science education in the United States. In outline the story was that the National Science Foundation (NSF), having invested quite heavily in school curriculum development and teacher institutes since the 1950s, had run into Congressional criticism. The NSF was after all a distant agency, arid one with little opportunity to have an impact on life in Pine City. Through 1968 and 1969 Pine City Schools were voluntarily desegregated under the State policy of 'freedom of choice'. In the eyes of everyone in Pecan County integration is the key issue, perhaps particularly in the schools, but anything tied to education pervades the community as a whole. Sometimes it seems as though the schools, and the High School especially, are a laboratory for the community, for it is there that social problems are brought to scrutiny.
