Faking It Won’t Make It in Science

Indianapolis

The speaker lets a small plastic vial fall to the floor and tosses out a simple question along with it: What caused the vial to drop? “Gravity,” his audience responds instinctively. And what, he asks them, is gravity? This time, the answers come more slowly and with less certainty. He singles out one response: “Gravity,” the speaker says to laughter from the room, “is what pulls objects to the Earth.”

“There’s some real circular reasoning here,” he adds.

The audience on this day is not an elementary or secondary school class, but a roomful of science teachers from around the country, who have gathered here for a meeting of the National Science Teachers Association. They’ve come to hear Bill Robertson, a writer and one-time curriculum developer, talk about a familiar topic: How can they improve their understanding of core science concepts when they’re expected to...