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Science and society: The Malvern course

A stimulating conference on ‘Social responsibility and education’ leaves participants with ideas, thoughts and phrases-some of those at the Leeds conference are noted overleaf-but where do we go from there? Those at the conference were all concerned about social responsibility, all agreed that education should make the young more aware of the issues involved, but the real problem is how it is to be done in an actual school. As an attempt had been made at Malvern College to provide a course on ‘Science and Society’ the last paper at the Leeds conference described that course. The account here is not offered as a panacea on how it should be done, it is merely a description of one attempt to meet a particular need which has been tried in three successive years. The Nuffield 0 level physics course deliberately encourages pupils ‘to think  as scientists’, to give understanding of the process of science, showing how a scientist looks for evidence, clues on which to base his theories. Of course there are details of the 0 level projects which could be improved, but on the whole the projects have achieved their object of moving science education  away  from  the rote memorizing of factual knowledge towards something a little closer to real science. But what is the result of this? A recent survey showed that pupils who had done 0 level Nuffield courses but were now studying non-scientific A levels still associated physics with atomic bombs, chemistry with pollution and biology with biological warfare, They were only too prepared to take an arrogant, self-righteous view of science, associating it with all that is evil in the world, despite the fact that they buy more and more electrical devices, yearn for bigger, better and faster cars and assume that continuous technical progress will be made to ease their lot, providing them with better entertainment, better transport, better education, better medical care and greater comfort. If this is what is happening, our new programs have failed in one important respect. make an attempt to incorporate social aspects. In Unit 6, for example, considerable emphasis is placed on the role of the engineer. In Unit 9 attention is drawn dramatically to the problem of limited energy resources, a  part of the course which is always thought provoking. But this comes too late for the boy or girl who has ceased to study physics at 0 level. (It is good to know that the forthcoming program produced by the Schools Council Integrated Science Project is likely to have more reference to social responsibility than was apparent in the earlier 0 level projects.) It was to meet the regrettable attitude of the nonscientist in the sixth form that the Malvern course on science and society was devised. It was a one year course for boys in the second year of the sixth form: this was important for it meant they were relatively mature in outlook. It should first be explained that Malvern is a school heavily committed to Nuffield courses and Nuffield methods in physics, chemistry and biology. Every boy in the school has to study Nuffield physics, chemistry and biology when  he arrives, and a very high proportion of the boys take these subjects at 0 level. This means that by the time they do the science and society course, boys have had much experience of laboratory work and of findirzg out for themselves. It was therefore assumed that the science and society course need not be laboratory based; apart from demonstrations by the teacher, very little laboratory work was included, The course was planned around a series of lectures and discussion periods. Providing a science course for non-scientists is not new, but too often in the past one man has been responsible for a one-term or a one-year course. One feature of the Malvern course is that a very large number of teachers contribute to it, each to a specific part of it depending on his speciality. This has the advantage that it is easier to timetable, but it also has the considerable advantage that it pro-