SCIENCE

Focus of Science

From class III onwards, science is studied as General Science which integrates different disciplines of learning. The curriculum realizes the need for providing an optimal balance between the basic sciences and the applied sciences. At the secondary level, the balance would remain with the basic sciences and the applied sciences would gain increased relevance with the higher stages of learning. Science is essentially conveyed as a set of ideas and processes. The objective is to convey the message that science is not the exclusive domain of a selected few but is equally a matter of consideration for every human being. This would help in imparting a scientific attitude; it is likely to impact the way they think, analyze and approach various issues in life. Further the curriculum is focused on promoting various concerns of science including health care, sanitation, eco-sensitivity, sustainable development, technology in society, and the like.

The focus of various disciplines of science from class VI onwards would shift to learning and appreciation of physical and natural sciences – their history, evolution and dynamics. However the pedagogy would essentially address the discovery of knowledge and understanding of systems rather than reproduction of information available in the textual materials or on the web. The Biology, Physics and Chemistry curriculum would promote basic approaches to research – observation, identification of problems, collection of data, data management and interpretation, analysis, inference and decision making. Taking cognizance of decline in the pursuit of study of basic sciences among the learners, the curriculum would help in promoting interest and curiosity in the basic sciences for higher levels of learning.

The middle school level is the appropriate age for promoting innovation and discovery. The right attitudes for the pursuit of unknown as an academic adventure, ability to find the relationship between the known and the unknown, skills of scientific and technological enterprise, innovation as a practice are some of the implied objectives of the curricular design at the middle level. It is equally important to pitch scientific pursuits not as the prerogative of established research structures, but as a simple pursuit of any human mind in the natural environment. The middle and the secondary school curriculum would address these objectives as a part of learning. The science curriculum would also attract the attention of the learners through direct and indirect inputs about common concerns of the present world such as – depleting sources of energy, increasing consumption of minerals and natural products, global warming issues, potential disasters consequent to nuclear wastes, etc.