A topic in Learners’ conceptions and thinking
Science teachers understandably have a focus on the school curriculum, and the teaching learners experience in school.
However, this is only one source informing student thinking. Students may experience science learning informally – they may read Scientific American, listen to podcasts like 'BBC Inside Science' or 'The Life Scientific', and visit science centres and museums. They may also have family who are scientists and talk about their work. Generally, these sources may promote interest and reinforce school learning.
There may also be other sources of information that are sometimes unhelpful to the science teacher.
Spontaneous concepts and 'intuitive theories'
Before school starts, learners will have developed spontaneous conceptions based on their experience of natural phenomena. As a simple example, young children learn about gravity as soon as they start grasping, lifting, dropping objects and attempting to walk. Of course, they do not know the label gravity at that age,and they do not have a scientific understanding ( in terms of a concept of fields, or mathematical formalisms) but they have relevant experience that leads to developing a spontaneous conception that can be used to later make sense of formal teaching about gravity.
Sometimes these spontaneous conceptions are very helpful for 'anchoring' teaching about formal scientific concepts, but sometimes they are at odds with formal science. So most people develop an 'intuitive theory' of force and motion which is inconsistent with the principle of inertia that is taught in school physics.
Language
Everyday discourse may include expressions which seem to link to scientific ideas, but in ways inconsistent with science. So, for example, talk about 'plant food' may offer a misleading parallel with human nutrition where energy metabolism and resources for building tissue is dependent on the food we consume (where plants are able to photosynthesise).
In everyday discourse is makes perfect sense to say that 'exercising regularly makes you more energetic' or that 'sleep recharges the batteries' but such idioms can seem at odds with scientific accounts (where exercise requires energy, and so does sleeping!)
Folk knowledge
Most societies also have a good deal of 'folk wisdom' which is sometimes taken very seriously. This is sometimes associated with what were misleadingly called 'primitive' societies. So, for example, in parts of the world there are still common belief systems that see illness as primary being due to supernatural or occult forces – demons, spirits of people engaging in witchcraft – which may be complementary to (that , offering an alternative layer of explanation) or more problematically contradictory to, scientific theories of disease causation.
However, this is not a phenomenon that has been avoided by societies that considered themselves more advanced. It is very common to think that getting soaked may make it likely one will catch a cold, even though the evidence suggests otherwise. Some of the most technologically rich and economically 'developed' societies have proved most susceptible to modern folk-tales (think of the anti-vaccination movement, and deniers of the moon landings – not to mention young earth creationists who think the earth's biota has existed for no mopre than 10 000 years!) Young people attending school will often be exposed to such ideas, and may indeed sometimes have been brought up in contexts where the community is strongly committed to some ideas at odds with what we teach in school science.
(Dubious) science in the media
As suggested above, the media may act as useful sources of information about science, and learners may gain a lot from listening to news reports, watching documentaries and the like.
Scientists reporting their work in the media, and journalists telling science stories, have a job that is somewhat like the school or college teacher: they have to simplify and summarise complex ideas in a way that readers / listeners / viewers can understand.
In a way, their job is more difficult than the teacher's as
- scientists and journalists are not specially trained in science pedagogy, unlike most science teachers
- the science teacher usually has a pretty good idea about the background of the class a lesson is given to, whereas in the media a report has to be aimed at some kind of 'general' audience member of indeterminate age and background knowledge.
Understandably, sometimes, this leads to such reports being potentially misleading, perhaps because of an over-simplification, a use of language that is not consistent with the current curriculum, or a figures of speech which can be misunderstood.
