A topical course overview, attached as Appendix A, shows how this approach will be implemented in the Curriculum Guide. Teaching Science at the Middle Level Carl Sagan, in the introduction to Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time , addresses the relationship between science and creative questioning. Encourage and assist students to create questions about what is around them. Give them an opportunity to explore and to discover answers to those questions. Ask them to analyze, compare, and evaluate those answers.
Science involves constructing an understanding of how the natural world works.
We observe what is around us, ask questions, and seek answers. The questions which we ask and the way we seek the answers is what distinguishes science from other ways of knowing about the world. This construction process is done through activities. Words in textbooks are not the way understanding is communicated. Words in textbooks may serve as examples of how to communicate understanding, or may confirm or contradict an understanding.