A Historical Study of Biological Education Reform in American High Schools from 1940s to 1960s.

Abstract

The author intend to represent the historical study examining biological education in high schools from 1940s via in bringing abo ut BSCS to the production of BSCS Special Materials. In this study he took the educational standpoints including the contents and processes of science teaching. The following results were obtained. The first. Summing up the change of the modern biology, he clarified the impact to the biological education by this change. The next. High school biology teachers w ere not much reflected by core. curriculum movement of the 1940s. At the end of 40s there were prototype of the new science curriculum. In 1950s there were two kinds of BSC S pretype which were midletype of the correlated teaching contents and processes. The third. He found two characteristics of BSCS biological education as follows; teaching contents in biological education are fulld of the contents and processes of biology as science; he regards the process of inquiry as the teaching process under organic correlation of teaching content and process. The fourth. Since it was recognized by the stuff of BSCS that there were many accademically unsuccessful students, they had produced Special Materials which showed the variety of learning content and process. Therefore, he recognizes educational value of this Special Materials as one of great factors in curriculum building. These historical studies of biological education in America shall suggest one of the ideal features of biological (science) education.