Science, as a subject matter, is expansive for it covers the great territory of humankinds’ desire to explain the processes governing the natural world. As such a grand discipline, science must be mutable as new knowledge, contexts, and theories are formed and shift into our current understanding of the world. 

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         The study of science is centered around the observations and inferences. Scientific observations come from interacting with processes that use our natural senses: sight, smell, touch, taste, sound. Observations are the basic data we collect from the world around us continually. Scientific observations do not have to include all of our five senses, but the most lasting experiences involve full-sensory and mentally engaged learning. Inferences are educated guesses that allow one to surmise what has happened in a given situation, story, picture, experiment, etc. Inferences can lead to hypotheses, which are testable questions, used to investigate a topic of interest. In the science classroom, having students generate hypotheses are key to illustrating how the scientific method works.  

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          Both scientific laws and theories originate from observations. They differ in the genesis of their design.  Laws are derived from description of natural phenomena. An example of a law is Boyle’s Law, which is used to describe the relationship between the temperature and pressure and volume of a gas in various containers. Theories are generalized explanations for observations of natural phenomena. An example of a theory is The Theory of Gravity. The theory of gravity has unity, which means it consists of a limited number of problem-solving strategies that can be applied to a wide range of scientific circumstances. Another feature of a good theory is that it is formed from a number of hypotheses that can be tested independently.

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          There are eight aspects of the nature of science and they are, in no particular order:

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1) Science is tentative.

2) Science is empirically based.

3) Science is subjective.

4) Science is partially based on human imagination, creativity, and inference.

5) Science is socially and culturally embedded (and therefore subject to biases).

6) In science, observations and inferences are not the same.

7) Scientific theories are not laws, and vice versa.

8) Scientific Laws  & Theories are tentative.

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           Teaching the nature of science, along with the discipline at hand (biology, earth science, physics, etc.) is vitally important because talking about the underlying assumptions within the framework of the subject matter allows for students to put the specific context they are learning into the larger whole. Teaching science as hard-truth, would belie the reality of science as a breathable, dynamic subject. It is this dynamism of the subject matter that allows students to reach out and engage with their own sense of discovery that is at the heart of all effective science education.

           

           Science is an extremely varied and versatile subject and has a place in the secondary science curriculum. Adolescents crave risk-taking and, subjects like biology, when taught effectively, can allow students to take risks, explore new ideas and build deeper understandings about themselves as theorists in a world where individuals fit into a larger society. 

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Theory vs Law:

http://www.livescience.com/21491-what-is-a-scientific-theory-definition-of-theory.html

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