"WATER AND MAN" : The Units of Science Education

Abstract

Teacher, children and materials are principal elements of the class. The materials have the information that a teacher communicates to the children in order to let the children attain to the educational aims. So the organization of the materials must depend on the educational aims and the children's ways of thinking. As the first step of the organization of the materials, the role of culture for a human should be clarified, then we should declare what relations there exist between human culture and cognitive activities. From the viewpoint that science education is to develop the children by their activities of cognition to natural phenomena, the organization of the materials should be based on "WATER" rather than anything else, in order to let the children recognize nature uniformly. This proposal can be supposed by the following facts. First, water relates to many natural phenomena, for example, the birth of life, the life of creature, atmospheric phenomena and so on. Second, it can be seen in everyday situations that water is an object of children's activities and interests. Last, water is concerned with human culture deeply. This is shown by the fact that civilization was born near marsh, and that man builds dams to utilize water at present. For the purpose of letting children develop their cognition for nature and recognize nature uniformly in learning the units of the materials, the materials should be organized by the medium of "WATER" rather than by any other medium.