The Significance and Some Methods of the Science Education in the Fields (Through the Ecological Materials in the High School Biology)

Abstract

The natural science has been making great progress, but the science education is facing some difficulties. For, it must be reformed as to keep pace with its advance. Now, the general education in the territory of physics, chemistry and phisiology has been attaining to each purpose to some extent. Standing on the other viewpoint, the author feels necessity to teach the scientific thought in the fields and to come in contact with variable natures. If man looks at nature, he finds many sorts of landscape, unless he lives in the center of the great city. The students also have many chances to converse with nature, specially when they attend at their open air school or sea side school. Many students, however, used to see land scape as the fine or bad scenery, and they never saw it as the object researching by the scientific methods. Judging from some examinations for the senior high school students (tenth grade), they seem to have less interests in the field biology than in the earth science. This paper is described the biological education under the natural conditions. In the methods of field biology must be on the basis of ecology. In some foreign biology textbooks and other teaching materials show the progressive thoughts on the view of ecology, so we must make our efforts for the science education of our country. With the consideration of educational standpoint, the author classifies them into three processes. One of them is achieved through the work that the student hypothesizes himself for some remarked phenomena observed freely in the fields, to explain its causual relation. This process may be effective for the development of the student's thought, because after this work he will make his efforts to prove his hypothesis. The second process is achieved by discovering the example near the basic pattern in the field and study its specific character, comparing with the typical pattern. This method serves the student well in his understanding the elation of structure and function in the ecosystem. The third 1s the work that the students devise to improve some experimental equipments to set on the field conditions and examine the physiological characters of the plants and animals living in their own environments. This method can not offer the exact data as in the laboratory, but on the field conditions they will have some effects to know the environmental factors which are influencing to the organisms. After these classifications, the author planned to adopt them to teach his students in his various lessons, and reported on this paper. The educational improvement for the field science should be further investigated, reformed and systematized, in relatives to the advance of ecology and the fundamental science education