VALUES IN SCIENCE EDUCATION ―A HOLISTIC PERSPECTIVE

Science and Technology is one of the most powerful and formative forces of our modern age. Much has been said and written on the beneficent and destructive potentialities of this great power of our age. But what is not fully recognized is that much of the destructive impact of modern science could have been minimized and its beneficent potential maximized, if the modern mind has bestowed a greater attention to the task of shaping the right values in science education. For the scientific method is only an intellectual framework and technology is just a tooled. How they are used depends on the values of their users. And these values, to be truly effective, have to become integral part of science education. This article examines the problem of shaping values in science education in a holistic perspective, which means science education is viewed in a systematic perspective as an important subset of the prevailing culture or environment of science. In this article, the word “Science” is used in a broader sense to include the physical and life sciences, social and applied sciences and their applied versions like technology.