ABSTRACT
Content continues its reign of supremacy in science education. For nearly a century, science teaching has involved the conveyance, memorization, and recitation of an ever-expanding body of specialized knowledge. In classrooms, students parrot such phrases as “mitochondria are the powerhouse of the cell” while cramming to recall the formula for photosynthesis. Yet when one considers the many global challenges we face in an age of dwindling natural resources and rapidly advancing technologies, such learning seems trivial. At several intervals over the previous century, reform-minded efforts attempted to break the content barrier with a so called process-oriented approach to learning science. An unanticipated and adverse outcome of such efforts was the emergence of a false dichotomy between these two aims. That is, science often came to be taught in such a way that the process of engaging in scientific activities became an isolated curricular objective, distinct from the resulting knowledge.
