高等学校における理科教育(地学)の今後を考える(2)

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Many high school students seem to think that the natural science programmed in high school are not closely related with their daily lives．This leads to the depression in function of science education in schools，which requires enhancement
of students' skill such as rational thinking and comprehensive judgment．In the new course of study adopted in April 2002，much scientific content was cut from the previous course for the purpose of relaxed study，so called“yutori kyoiku”in Japanese．It seems that these cuts have lowered of students' knowledge levels and scientific insight．
What is required for fruitful education in high schools includes（1）stimulation of scientific interests on students，and（2）training for acquiring skill to formulize natural phenomena and to create applicable scientific hypotheses by the
students themselves．To achieve these goals，science education requires（a）repeated exercise of basics，（b）learning the relationship between science and ethics，（c）learning the history of science，（d）comprehensive studies among several disciplines and（e）experiments which model the scientific phenomena familiar to students' live．We should understand that relaxed education in high schools is fruitful only when students' basic knowledge is reached an adequate level．