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Layton, DavidTechnology's Challenge to Science Education.Developing Science and Technology Series.ISBN-0-335-09958-09380p.; For other documents in this series, see SE 054626-630.Taylor and Francis, 1900 Frost Road, Suite 101,Bristol, PA 19007.Guides Non-Classroom Use (055)

MF01/PC04 Plus Postage.Elementary School Science; Elementary SecondaryEducation; Foreign Countries; *Science and Society;*Science Curriculum; *Science Education; SecondarySchool Science; Teaching Methods; *TechnologyEducation; *Womens EducationEngland; Wales

Science and technology are often presented and taughtas two separate essences. When this is done, students as well asteachers are forced to attempt to develop the appropriate linkages.This book is one of a series designed to help teachers develop theirscience and technological education in ways that are both satisfyingto themselves and stimulating to their students. The book partitionsinto the following chapters: (1) "The emergence of technology as acomponent of general education"; (2) "Technology in the NationalCurriculum of England and Wales"; (3) "Understanding technology-1 Theseamless web"; (4) "Understanding technology-2 Values, gender andreality"; (5) "Science as a resource for technological capability";(6) "Reworking the school science-technology relationship"; and (7)"Responses and resources: a review of the field." (ZWH)

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Technology's challenge tosci, !nce education

3

DEVELOPING SCIENCE ANDTECHNOLOGY EDUCATION

Series Editor: Brian WoolnoughDepartment of Educational Studies, University of Oxford

Current titles:

John Eggleston: Teaching Design and TechnologyDavid Layton: Technology's Challenge to Science EducationKeith Postlethwaite: Differentiated Science TeachingJon Scaife and Jerry Wellington: Information Technology in Science and Technology EducationJoan Solomon: Teaching Science, Technology and SocietyClive Sutton: Words, Science and Learning

Titles in preparation include:

Michael Poole: Beliefs and Values in Science EducationMichaei Reiss: Science Education for a Pluralist Society

RATh M

On page 51 the first paragraph beginning 'The essential point here is should readThe translation of scientific knowledge into a form which articulates w iththe design parameters in terms of which technological

interventions can hemade, thus pros ides a rational basis for the deplo!, mem of as ailableiesources and the aims of associated health educatiim progranunes.The second paragraph beginning

'The essential point here is correct as printed.

4

Technology's challenge toscience educationCATHEDRAL, QUARRY OR COMPANY STORE?

DAVID LAYTON

Open University PressBuckingham Philadelphia

5

Open University PressCeltic Court22 BallmoorBuckinghamMK18 1XW

and1900 Frost Road, Suite 101Bristol, PA 19007, USA

First Published 1993

Copyright © David Layton 1993

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for thepurposes of criticism and review, no part of this publication may bereproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form orby any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,without the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence fromthe Copyright Licensing Agency Limited. Details of such licences (forreprographic reproduction) may be obtained from the Copyright LicensingAgency Ltd of 90 Tottenham Court Road, London, W1P 9HE.

A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Layton, David, 1925-Technology's challenge to science education: cathedral, quarry,

or company store?/David Layton.p. cm. (Developing science and technology education)

Includes bibliographical references and index.ISBN 0-335-09959-9. ISBN 0-335-09958-0 (pbk.)1. Science-Study and teaching. 2. Technology education.

3. Curriculum development-Great Britain. I. Title. II. Series.0181.L488 1993507'.1- dc20 92-30287

CIP

Typeset by Type Study, ScarboroughPrinted in Great Britain by St Edmundsbury Press,Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk

6

Contents

Series editor's preface

Acknowledgements

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

Index

The emergence of technology as a component of general education

Technology in the National Curriculum of England and Wales

Understanding technology I The seamless web

Understanding technology 2 Values, gender and reality

Science as a resource for technological capability

Reworking the school sciencetechnology relationship

Responses and resources: a review of the field

7

7

9

11

17

23

31

41

57

67

79

Series editor's preface

It may seem surprising that after three decades ofcurriculum innovation, and with the increasingprovision of a centralised National Curriculum,that it is felt necessary to produce a series of bookswhich encourages teachers and curriculum de-velopers to continue to rethink how science andtechnology should be taught in schools. But teach-ing can never be merely the 'delivery' of someoneelse's 'given' curriculum. It is essentially a personaland professional business in which lively, thinking,enthusiastic teachers continue to analyse their ownactivities and mediate the curriculum frameworkto their students. If teachers ever cease to becritical of what they are doing, then their teaching,and their students' learning, will become sterile.

There are still important questions which needto be addressed, questions which remain funda-mental but the answers to which may vary accord-ing to the social conditions and educationalpriorities at a particular time.

What is the justification for teaching science andtechnology in our schools? For educational orvocational reasons? Providing science and tech-nology for all, for future educated citizens, or toprovide adequately prepared and motivated stu-dents to fulfil the industrial needs of the country?Will the same type of curriculum satisfactorilymeet both needs or do we need a differentiatedcurriculum? In the past it has too readily beenassumed that one type of science will meet allneeds.

What should be the nature of science andtechnology in schools? It will need to develop both

the methods and the content of the subject, theway a scientist or engineer works and the appropri-ate knowledge and understanding, but what is therelationship between the two? How does thestudent's explicit knowledge relate to investi-gational skill, how important is the student's tacitknowledge? In the past the holistic nature ofscientific activity and the importance of affectivefactors such as commitment and enjoyment havebeen seriously undervalued in relation to thestudent's success.

And, of particular concern to this series, what isthe relationship between science and technology?In some countries the scientific nature of tech-nology and the technological aspects of sciencemake the subjects a natural continuum. In othersthe curriculum structures have separated the twoleaving the teachers to develop appropriate links.Underlying this series is the belief that science andtechnology have an imr-Irtant interdependenceand thus many of the boo, will be appropriate toteachers of both science and technology.

Professor Layton's book tackles these issuesdirectly. He asserts that simplistic models of therelationship between technology and science mustbe rejected. most of which ignore the values andcultural dependence underlying technology. Heencourages us to move beyond a view of tech-nology as artefacts and see it as a social phenom-enon and expression of human work. Consideringthe relationship between school science and tech-nology, he asks us to decide between science asa cathedral, a quarry or a company store! His

8

8 TECHNOLOGY'S CHALLENGE TO SCIENCE EDUCATION

conclusion is that 'the inclusion of technology inthe curriculum ot general education entails achange in the culture of schools. It is not that theexisting culture, with whatever emphasis thismight have on academic achievements and pas-toral concerns, needs to be replaced. Rather, itrequires enhancement by the celebration of practi-cal capability as an extension of scholastic attain-ments into the wider world of purposeful designand action.'

This is an important, perceptive, scholarly

book, which is both analytical and radical. Itclarifies many issues, and clears away many myths,which have in the past made the progress oftechnology in schools so uncertain and of sciencein schools so reactionary.

We hope that this book, and the series as awhole, will help many teachers to develop theirscience and technological education in ways thatare both satisfying to themselves and stimulatingto their students.

Brian E. Woolnough

8

Acknowledgements

The ideas in this book owe much to discussions Ihave had over several years with colleagues both inthe Centre for Studies in Science and MathematicsEducation, University of Leeds, and in otheruniversities in the UK and overseas. They are toonumerous to name, but they know who they arcand I hope they will accept my thanks for scholarlycommunion and generosity of intellect.

My involvement in a substantial project of theOECD, involving the analysis of case studies ofinnovations in science, mathematics and tech-nology education in OECD member countries, hasbeen the source of valued information and in-sights. Similarly, the opportunity to edit forUNESCO a series of volumes on Innovations inScience and Technology Education, drawing oncontributions from science and technology educa-tors worldwide, has provided even more inclusiveperspectives on the role of technology in generaleducation and the relationship between schoolscience and school technology. It will be clear alsothat I owe a special debt to the community ofhistorians of technology: at an international con-ference on Technological Development and Sci-ence in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries,held at Eindhoven in 1990, I had the enrichingexperience of working alongside several of theleading contributors to this field. Their influence isevident throughout the book.

More particularly, my membership of the Sec-retary of State's National Curriculum WorkingGroup on Design and Technology, chaired byLady Margaret Parkes, and my subsequent in-

volvement with groups of teachers in England andWales who were implementing the 1990 StatutoryOrder for Technology, provided a demanding testbed for ideas on the emerging relationship ofschool science and school technology. The majorpart of the book was written before proposals for arevised Order were published in December 1992.It was encouraging to see the restoration ofcross-references .to the Science Order in thatdocument, although it is the contention in whatfollows that if science is to fulfil its role as a potentresource for the development of children's techno-logical capability, much more is required than amere collating of topics from the two Orders. Theterms of reference of the group established torevise the 1990 Order included the injunction to'clarify how and when the skills, knowledge andunderstanding developed through other Curricu-lum Orders should be made use of in technology.'With respect to science, this would serve as adescription of the purpose of the seven chapterswhich follow.

A number of curriculum development projectsconcerned with the relationship between schoolscience and school technology have generouslymade their published and trial material availableto me and I have been able to use this to illustratesome curriculum issues, notably in Chapter 7.Their collaboration is greatly appreciated andattributions are made in the text at the appropriatepoints.

For permission to reproduce figures and tables, Iam indebted to the following: Dr Arnold Pacey

1 0

10 TECHNOLOGY'S CHALLENGE TO SCIENCE EDUCATION

and Basil Blackwell Publishers Ltd (Fig. 3.1); NewScientist (Table 4.1); The Schools Examinationsand Assessment Council (Figs 4.1 and 4.2); TheWorld Bank, Washington (Table 5.2); TheMaking Use of Science and Technology Project(Figs 7.2 and 7.3); The Science with TechnologyProject (Fig. 7.4).

I am especially appreciative of the willingness ofthe Association for Science Education to allow meto reproduce its Policy Statement on Technology,approved by Council in May 1991, as an Appendixto Chapter 7.

Certain passages in the chapters have appearedin, or have been adapted from, work that I have

published elsewhere and I am grateful to theeditor, Edgar Jenkins, and Studies in EducationLtd, for permission to use material which ap-peared in volume 19 (1991) of Studies in ScienceEducation; The Centre for Studies in Science andMathematics Education, University of Leeds,for permission to use material which formed achapter in E. W. Jenkins (ed.) (1990) Policy Issuesand School Science Education; and The Depart-ment of Education, University of Liverpool, forpermission to draw upon material published inInarticulate Science? (1990) Occasional PaperNo. 17.

11

CHAPTER 1

The emergence of technology as a componentof general education

Influences for change

For teachers wrestling with the everyday problemsof school lifc, striving to do their best for theirpupils whilst coping with incessant change im-posed from outside, it may not he obvious that aradical transformation of mission is underway.The demands of the immediate and preoccu-pations with practice deflect attention from theoverview.

Yet when an opportunity arises for sights to beraised, it is clear that the goals and contexts ofschooling are undergoing major redefinition.Furthermore, this is a general trend in manycountries throughout the world. Whilst explor-ation of the full complexity of these changes liesoutside the scope of this book, some indications ofthe forces driving reform ar :. readily available.

In the UK, for example, a Technical and Vo-cational Education Initiative (TVEI) for 14- to18-year olds, after a pilot run of four years, wasextended in 1987 to all maintained schools andcolleges as a 10-year programme with supportingfunds of some £900 million. Significantly, thesource of this funding was not the goverament'sDepartment of Education and Science, respon-sible for schools, but the Department of Employ-ment. In Australia, this convergence of interestshas been acknowledged by the creation of a singleDepartment of Employment, Education andTraining. In both these countries, and in others asgeographically and economically different as theUSA, Finland and Zimbabwe, there are strong

movements to encourage work-related or work-oriented learning, linking general education inpartnerships with industry and commerce, andreconstructing the interface between vocationaland general education. Certainly, any interpre-tation of vocationalism in terms of a narrowoccupationalism or job-specific training is totallyinadequate in most contexts today, given therapidity and pervasiveness of technologicalchange. Successful firms of the future will needworkers equipped with 'skills as a general poly-valent resource that can be put to many differentand, most importantly, as yet unknown futureuses' (Streeck, 1989).

One way of describing these changes is to saythat general education is being vocationalised,whilst vocational education is being generalised.To leave matters there, however, would concealthe diverse origins of the impulse for change. Thevocationalising of general education is driven bymultiple concerns, of which at least five can bedistinguished:

1 Economic considerations, both national andindividual, have been paramount in many con-texts. The opening words of the British govern-ment's White Paper entitled Working TogetherEducat'on and Training (1986, Cmnd. 9823: 1)typical:

12

We live in a world of determined, educated,trained and strongly motivated competitors.The competition they offer has taken more

12 TECHNOLOGY'S CHALLENGE TO SCIENCE EDUCATION

and more of our markets - both overseasand here at home.

For the nation and all who work in itsbusinesses - both large and small - survivaland success will depend on designing, makingand selling goods and services that thecustomer wants at the time he wants and at aprice he is prepared to pay; innovating toimprove quality and efficiency; andmaintaining an edge over all competition.This will not be just for today or tomorrowbut for the foreseeable future.

The same machines and equipment areavailable to all. Success will go to those (bcthey firms, communities or nations) whosepeople can use them to the best advantage.And that requires individual initiative,innovation and competence across the wholespectrum of skills and aptitudes. People -with their knowledge, learning, skills,intelligence, innovation and competence - arcour most important asset and resource.

There is a clear message here about the limi-tations of academic learning and the need foreducation to articulate more effectively withenterprise in the made-world.

2 A related political concern arises from theprospect that unchanged educational provisionscould lead to large numbers of unemployable,disillusioned and alienated young people whowould constitute a socially destabilising force.Many pupils in school find meaning and rel-evance in their studies only to the extent thatthese are practical and related to the worldoutside school that they know and understand.A better bridge between school and work is oneimportant aspect of the interpretation of vo-cationalised general education applied here. Forsome, also, there is emphasis on the fostering ofpersonal qualities such as reliability, complianceand conscientiousness necessary to ensure aneffective and subordinate workforce. Some, atleast, of this message is strangely at odds withthe requirement for initiative, enterprise andinnovation.

3 Recognition of the extraordinary transforma-tory powers of technological change, not only

4

5

over the means of production and communi-cation, but also over lifestyles and humanvalues, has brought into prominence a socialconcern for the control of technology. It is

important that we shape it, rather than allowingit to shape us. This entails a crucial criticalcomponent in the study and application oftechnology. One response to this is a criticalvocationalism, which goes beyond the acqui-sition of knowledge and skills for employment,to include an understanding of the context ofwork in its social, economic, political, moral andaesthetic dimensions (Spours and Young, 1988).

In addition to external economic, political andsocial drives for the vocationalising of generaleducation, there are internal educational andepistemological considerations which point inthe same direction. The prevailing academicismof much school learning is criticised because itdoes not equip its recipients for action in whatDonald Schön (1987: 6) has called 'the indeter-minate zones of practice'. He means by thisthose all-too-common situations in which de-cisions are not clear-cut, where the evidentialbasis for action is uncertain, where probabilitieshave to be weighed against each other, whereconstraints on action can be conflicting andunpredictable, and where optimisation ratherthan irrefutability is a characteristic of solutions.It is argued that, on its own, propositionalknowledge, 'knowing that', is not enough; itneeds complementing by action knowledge,'knowing how'. The competencies that dis-tinguish skilful performance in the realms ofpractical action deserve greater recognition incurriculum terms. Historically, they have hadlow educational status and have frequently beenmarginalised in, if not excluded from, the cur-riculum of general education; `practical' hasbeen a term of disparagement in contrast to'academic' or `scholarly'. The time has nowcome to redress the balance and `privilege thepractical'.A particular Anglo-Saxon variant of the econ-omic and educational arguments is MartinWiener's (1981) thesis that schools transmitaristocratic, as opposed to industrial, values, the

134

THE EMERGENCE OF TECHNOLOGY AS A COMPONENT OF GENERAL EDUCATION

emphasis being on the learning, retention andregurgitation of delocalised academic know-ledge. It is argued that education in England andWales has never come to terms with industrialis-ation, despite the countries being the site of theIndustrial Revolution. There is a need to incul-cate more favourable attitudes to employmentin industry in secondary school students es-pecially. A 'third culture' of technology, incor-porated in the curriculum alongside theestablished 'two cultures' of 'arts' and 'sciences'has been suggested as one way forward.

It will be clear that these various impulses forchange contain within themselves the seeds ofconflict. For example, a critical vocationalismintended to assist the control of technology mightdiffer in its implications for action from a vo-cationalism impelled by the unbridled quest foreconomic competitiveness. It has always been thecase, however, that the shaping of the curriculumhas depended on the outcome of contests betweenconflicting interests and so there is nothing new inthis situation. Whilst we might expect, and alreadyfind, considerable diversity of response, there are,nevertheless, significant common features. Per-haps the most notable of these is the emergence ofa new subject, technology, , as a curriculum focusfor the development of practical capabilities.

The origins of school technology

Unlike school subjects such as chemistry, historyand geography, technology does not have a well-established role model in higher education. Rep-resentatives of particular technologies are to befound there (e.g. food technology, textile tech-nology) as are the various branches of engineering(civil, chemical, electrical, electronic, mechanical,etc.). In certain countries, there arc also highereducation institutions where design is taught.However, although attempts have been made toconstruct general engineering courses, embodyingprinciples common to several branches of en-gineering, there is no subject called 'technology',comparable to, say, physics or biology. School

13

technology does not have its origins in highereducation and the engineering faculties there havenot been prominent in urging its inclusion as acomponent of general education.

What seems to be occurring in many cases is theemergence of school technology from below by aprocess of subject transformation which differsfrom country to country. The curriculum ingredi-ents from which the process begins can vary andthere is a lack o f consensus on the fine details of theend-product. Much depends on the character ofthe institutions involved and on the precursors oftechnology which have existed there.

In the USA, for example, many developmentsin technology education have grown out of thehigh school curriculum subject called 'industrialarts', itself an evolutionary product of 'manualtraining'. As the name implies, industrial arts hada content reflective of the different industrialsystems such as production, transportation andcommunication and the processes associated withthese. Whilst the American Industrial Arts Associ-ation, the professional association of teachers ofindustrial arts, has now changed its name to theInternational Technology Education Association,the power of precedent remains strong and muchtechnology education in the USA is still organisedaround the three systems identified, with theaddition of biotechnology as an industrial new-comer. Until comparatively recently, and in con-trast to the UK, the process aspects of technology,and the involvement of students in design activitiesin particular, have received little prominence inthe US developments (Todd, 1991).

In the Netherlands, secondary education startsat age twelve and is divided into two tracks, therebeing both general and vocational schools. Withinthe vocational schools, a subject called 'generaltechniques' was introduced in 1973 and has con-tinued there with modifications. A governmentproposal in 1987 to reform the curriculum of lowersecondary education , and to include technology asa subject in both vocational and general schools,led to further developments. Official proposals forthe curriculum for technology and for technologyattainment targets at 15+ were initially, andperhaps understandably, much influenced by the

14

14 TECHNOLOGY'S CHALLENGE TO SCIENCE EDUCATION

experiences of teaching general techniques invocational schools. There was a strong emphasison the craft skills required for making functional'work pieces' and little opportunity was providedfor pupils to design, as opposed to make and use,technological artefacts. It was stated that 'Not allpupils possess the capability of "providing a sol-ution" to a problem and transforming thought andideas into concrete form. For most pupils, thedesign phase will consist primarily of discoveringapplications' (Attainment Targets Committee forTechnology, 1989: 24). Alternative versions oftechnology education which give more promi-nence to designing activities, emphasise the learn-ing of general technological concepts andprinciples, relate technology more strongly toscience and mathematics and generally present amore dynamic view of technology, have sub-sequently been formulated in the Netherlands andare influencing the nature of the reform to someextent.

Finland provides yet another illustration of therecent introduction of technology as a componentof general education. In fact, no new subject called'technology' has been added to the curriculum, butdevelopments have occurred within an existingsubject called, since 1975, 'technical work'. Theorigins of this can be traced back to 'boys' crafts' inthe Folk Schools and, later, 'technical crafts' in theFinnish comprehensive schools. Like its precur-sors and as its name implies technical work isintended to relate closely to the prevailing modesof production in the society, although not in anarrow vocational sense. In the recent curriculumdevelopments in Finland, the aim of technologyeducation is to teach pupils to understand and useautomation. The emphasis, therefore, is on basicengineering principles, electronics, technicaldrawing, computer-aided design and manufacture(CAD-CAM) and computer numerical control(CNC). Computer education, initially introducedas a separate subject distinct from technical work,is now being incorporated progressively in allsubjects in the curriculum of general education.Within technical work, students have experienceof computer-aided design in the production ofpieces of work which are machined at numerically

controlled work-stations. They experiment withproduction line simulations, involving robots, as-sembly lines, measuring equipment for qualitycontrol and numerically controlled machines.Computers are used for the control of processesinvolving motors, relays, solenoids, pumps, etc.,and students design automatic processes them-selves in project work.

This 'high-tech' and production-orientated ver-sion of technology education is in marked contrastto developments in several other countries where agreater emphasis is being placed on the processaspects of designing, making and appraising tech-nological artefacts and systems, and on the cog-nitive development of pupils in ways which areunique to technology education. The Finnish inno-vation acknowledges the need to co-ordinate ef-fectively the work that students do in theirtechnical work and in their science lessons, but hasencountered problems in this area, not least be-cause of the lack of science in the previouseducation of the craft teachers who have beenretrained for the teaching of technical work.

Without multiplying examples further andthere are comparable and distinctive develop-ments in other countries such as Australia,Ireland, Scotland and Spain, as well as in Englandand Wales a number of general points can bemade about the origins of school technology andthe ways in which it is being incorporated into thecurriculum of general education.

First, technology is a new school subject in thesense that it lacks both a history and a tradition as acomponent of the general education of all chil-dren. It is true that in institutions of vocationaleducation, certain branches of technology havebeen taught, usually in conjunction with the re-quirements of specific occupations or trades. Typi-cal subjects are automobile technology, buildingtechnology, horticulture and cookery. In second-ary general education, gender-biased versions forselected groups of students have been common,e.g. woodwork and metalwork for less able boys.The present innovations, however, are different inthat most of them are attempting to create asubject which is free of narrow vocational connec-tions and which will extend the most able children

15

THE EMERGENCE OF TECHNOLOGY AS A COMPONENT OF GENERAL EDUCATION

while providing experiences of success for thoseless gifted. There are few reliable benchmarks bywhich to judge performance; there is as yet noculture of school technology, expressed incommon educational beliefs, values, standardsand practices, such as is the case with, say, scienceor mathematics. Indeed, the innovation can beunderstood as an attempt to create a new culturewhich places high value on practical capability.

Second, whereas diversity of response seems tobe a characteristic of the innovation from aninternational perspective, this may be more aproduct of ways of implementing the reform thanof deep differences of opinion about Nhat schooltechnology should be. Of course, differences doexist, for example in the emphasis to be given todesign activities in the subject, and the situation isnot helped by the almost total absence of researchinto the teaching and learning of technology.Certainly there is no body of research findings onchildren's learning of technology comparable tothat which exists for science and mathematics. Thisapart, the innovation seems to be characterised inmost contexts by a pragmatic approach, acceptingthe situation which presently exists in precursorsubjects, not least with regard to teacher skills andqualifications, and building from this. Because thestarting point is so different in the various edu-cational systems, it is not surprising that a snapshotof progress at a relatively early stage of develop-ment should reveal diversity. Furthermore, it isunderstandable that most developments have sofar been at secondary school level. That is wherethe external influences for reform bear morestrongly and where subject precursors are moreobvious. Increasingly, however, technology isbeing incorporated in the curriculum of primaryschools where the structure of the timetable andthe style of working can frequently provide a morehospitable environment for technological activi-ties than is the case in many secondary schools.

15

Third, a general characteristic of school tech-nology and one Which makes it different frommany other school subjects is its engagement withpractical action in the made world. No subjectchallenges the historic role of schools as insti-tutions which decontextualise knowledge quite sostrongly as does technology. It represents a majorrevaluation of the kinds of knowledge which asociety deems important. Academic knowledgehas hitherto been king and, in most subjects,learning has been an end in itself. What technologysignals is the recognition that practical knowledge,i.e. knowledge which empowers its possessors inthe realms of practical action, is now being ac-corded equal status.

References

Attainment Targets Committcc for Technology (1989)Proposed Attainment Targets at 15 +: Proposals to theSecretary of State for Education and Science in theNetherlands.

Schön, D. A. (1987) Educating the Reflective Prac-titioner. London: Jossey-Bass.

Spours, K. and Young, M. F. D. (1988) BeyondVocationalism. Working Paper No. 4, New Series.London: Centre for Vocational Studies, Institute ofEducation, University of London.

Strecck, W. (1989) Skills and the limits of neo-liberalism: Thc enterprise of the future as a place oflearning. Work, Employment and Society, 3(1),89-104.

Todd, R. (1991) The changing face of technologyeducation in thc United States. In J. S. Smith (cd.),Dater 91 pp. 261-75. Loughborough: Departmentsof Design and Technology, Loughborough Universityof Technology.

Wiener, M. (1981) English Culture and the Decline of theIndustrial Spirit 1850-1980. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press.

1 6

CHAPTER 2

Technology in the National Curriculum ofEngland and Wales

Legal framework and subject precursors

The brief sketches in the previous chapter of waysin which technology education is emerging indifferent educational systems are sufficient toindicate some general features of the innovation.To reveal more clearly the complexity of what canbe involved in the construction of a school tech-nology curriculum, however, a more detailedexploration is needed. This will now be under-taken for one development, perhaps the mostambitious attempt so far to incorporate technologyas an essential component of general education,i.e. the case of technology in the National Curricu-lum of England and Wales.

The 1988 Education Reform Act established aminimum entitlement National Curriculum of tensubjects as a legal requirement for all children instate-maintained schools in England and Walesaged 5-16 years. The ten subjects are:

Core subjects: mathematics. English and sci-ence;Foundation subjects: technology, history, geo-ography, music, art, physical education and (forsecondary schools) a modern foreign language.

The implementation of the total National Cur-riculum is a phased process likely to continuethroughout the 1990s. Statutory Orders for thethree core subjects were published in 1989 and inSeptember of that year the teaching of mathemat-ics. English and science to primary school childrenaged 5-7 years and of mathematics and science to

I I- to 14-year olds commenced. The first of thefoundation subjects, technology, was introducedin September 1990 for primary school childrenaged 5-11 years and for secondary school childrenaged 11-14 years.

Up to this time, technology had not been asubject of the school curriculum, at least underthat name. However, in primary schools, muchteaching was thematic, involving cross-curricularapproaches and practical activities (e.g. makingmodels) which could contribute to technologicalcapability. In addition, following criticisms thatscience was being neglected in the primary schoolcurriculum, a greater emphasis had been placed onthis subject, much of the work being based onpractical technological situations within the ex-perience of young children. What was missing,however, was any attempt to develop technologi-cal capability in a deliberate and well-plannedprogression.

As for the secondary school curriculum, at leastsix different and at times competing strands ofactivity provided a possible foundation for tech-nology. There was, first, in many schools, still alegacy of craft subjects (e.g. woodwork and metal-work for boys taught by men and sewing andcookery for girls taught by women). These had lowstatus, the courses frequently being restricted toless academically inclined pupils. Few of the menteachers, especially, possessed academic qualifi-cations, their work being categorised as manualrather than mental. It is not surprising that theseteachers saw the incorporation of design principles

17

18 TECHNOLOGY'S CHALLENGE TO SCIENCE EDUCATION

in their work as a way of raising the status of theirsubjects by adding an apparently cognitive dimen-sion to the making of artefacts.

The teaching of the processes of design, thesecond precursor of school technology, involvedthe reconciliation of functional demands (i.e. whatwas being produced should do what was intended)with the various constraints of the situation (e.g.the limitations of materials available; cost and timerestrictions; ergonomic and aesthetic require-ments, etc.). This gave intellectual status to theconstruction of artefacts and systems, and thesubject was strongly supported by those urging agreater emphasis on design in industry and inpublic life generally. The Council of IndustrialDesign, later the Design Council, was prominentin this field, and successfully recruited the supportof influential politicians including MargaretThatcher when Prime Minister. The boundaries ofthe subject were not always clear-cut, however,and it was sometimes associated with the teachingof art. From the standpoint of technology, aweakness of the approach was a tendency forpupils' work at the drawing board (and, morerecently, at the computer terminal) to predomi-nate at the expense of the acquisition of construc-tional skills.

A third strand of development, prominent es-pecially in the 1960s and later, and to some extent areaction to the purity of the science curriculumreforms of this period, involved an attempt toconvey to pupils the excitement and challenge ofengineering. This was supported by those whowished to encourage more able students to embarkupon studies in science and engineering in univer-sities. The topics included electronics, structures,energy transfer, feedback and control, pneumaticsystems and even elementary aerodynamics andwind tunnel experiments. There was an emphasison creativity, as opposed to the allegedly analyticalmodes of thought associated with the new sciencecurricula. Unhappily, the innovation provoked aconflict over the extent to which craft skills orscientific theory should underpin the work whichstudents undertook. The details of this damagingdispute have been recounted elsewhere (McCull-och et al. , 1985; Penfold, 1988) and need not be

18

repeated here. A major national curriculum initia-tive, 'Project Technology', produced some ex-cellent teaching materials, but, at the time madelittle impact on the work that was done in themajority of secondary schools.

By the beginning of the 1980s, and drawing onthe three precursors above, a school subjectknown as Craft, Design and Technology (CDT)was appearing in the curriculum of a growingnumber of secondary schools in England andWales. This development was strongly supportedby some members of Her Majesty's Inspectorate,who had undertaken a review of 'good practice'associated with 'the range of learning that goes onin school workshops' in the 1977-78 academic year(DES, 1980). The attempt to co-ordinate effort inthe subject met with some success and helped toraise its status to that of an essential component ofgeneral education, the technological area of learn-ing and experience being one of nine prescribedfor the curriculum of all schools, both primary andsecondary (DES, 1985). Even so, teachers con-tinued to adopt a wide variety of approaches andemphases in their work. Scientific principles, par-ticularly of physics, could be taught by CDTteachers to secondary school pupils who had beentaught the same principles, but in a different way,by their physics teachers. Electronics, especially,was a subject which exposed differences in ap-proach. For much CDT work, it was sufficient forpupils to have a functional understanding of de-vices rather than a fundamental grasp of theunderlying physics knowledge of what a transis-tor could do had priority over how it was able to doit.

Within CDT itself, different emphases con-tinued to flourish. When the public examinationsystem at age sixteen was changed in the late 1980swith the introduction of the General Certificate ofSecondary Education (GCSE), it was foundnecessary to provide three different CDT-relatedexaminations: CDT-Design and Realisation,CDT-Technology and CDT-Design and Com-munication. The extent to which this representsprogress is only seen when it is recalled that at thebeginning of the decade there were some 1500different CDT-related examination syllabuses in

THE NATIONAL CURRICULUM OF ENGLAND AND WALES

existence covering fields as diverse as furniture-making, jewellery, rural crafts, motor vehiclestudies, geometrical-drawing, control technologyand metalwork (Rose, 1988). It was the view of SirKeith Joseph, Secretary of State for Education,speaking in 1985, that whilst CDT had a vital partto play in a broad and balanced school curriculumand that much had already been done, there wasstill a long way to go:

Nonc of us can bc satisfied with a situation inwhich 93 per cent of the subject entries in theCDT areas in public examinations at 16+ arefrom boys and only 7 per cent from girls, withthe imbalance even greater at 18+ and with asituation in which only 2 per cent of CDTteachers are women.

(Joseph, 1985)

As its name indicated, CDT was an attempt toconsolidate in one school subject the educationalpotential of at least three historic and distinguish-able strands of curriculum evolution. Alongsidethis innovation, there were other changes takingplace which were seen by their proponents ascontributing to an education in technology. Thedevelopments in this case, however, came notfrom craft and design but from science.

A widespread perception of the nature of tech-nology among scieoce teachers in the 1960s, andeven later, was that technology was little morethan the application of scientific knowledge andpractices. The Organiser for Physics in the Nuf-field Foundation's Science Teaching Project wasdoing no more than express a widely held beliefwhen he stated that:

The technologist must have a tremendous know-ledge of science; and he must understand thatscience which he puts to such grand use . . .

Furthermore I fear the technologist is sterile:one generation of technologists cannot breed thenext generation for the latter will be farbehind the frontiers, and will lack the deeperunderstanding which is part of their preparation.It is the pure scientists who must give the nextgeneration of technologists essential training.

(Rogers, 1964)

Despite this attribution of low status to tech-

1 9

19

nology, many science teachers in the post-Nuffieldperiod found it advantageous to incorporate refer-ences to technological applications in their work.The pure and academically demanding 'science forscientists' of the early projects was shown to havepractical use outside the classroom as 'science foraction'. Although this development helped tomake the subject more attractive to students byrelating science to the everyday and industrialworlds, the prime aim remained an un&rstandingof scientific principles and not the development ofa capability to identify and undertake successfullytechnological tasks. Technological applicationswere an addition designed to aid the learning ofscience.

A subsequent broadening of science coursesinvolved consideration of social issues related toscientific developments and of the interactionsbetween science, technology and society. Theso-called STS movement achieved considerableprominence in the 1980s, although through most ofthis period there was little recognition by itspractitioners of technology as anything other thanan adjunct of science. The work of students mightfocus on a major technological advance such asnuclear power or human organ replacement, or ona current issue such as environmental pollution,the relevant science being studied alongside thesocietal aspects of it.

Recent STS teaching materials have recognisedtechnology as an autonomous co-equal to, and nota subordinate branch of, science, but this was notso in the earlier 'science for citizens' develop-ments. A position strongly argued by some scienceeducators was that the introduction of technologyas a separate field of study should be opposed; itwould lead to science education becoming morepure because the applications of science would bedealt with in technology. Rather, technologyshould be 'incorporated into the context of scienceteaching' to enhance this; the content of presentscience courses should be taught 'in a technologi-cal way applying, showing applications andteaching appreciation' of social and moral impli-cations (Woolnough, 1975). Technology, then,was to remain subservient to science, assimilatedinto science education for the benefit of the latter,

20 TECHNOLOGY'S CHALLENGE TO SCIENCE EDUCATION

with the main road to pupils' technological under-standing and capability being through science.

As we have seen, a direct challenge to thissituation came in the 1980s with the developmentof CDT courses. An HMI survey, published in1982, concluded that although 'in some areas thetechnology in CDT predominates . . . this is theexception rather than the norm'. At that stage, thedevelopment of technology courses was beingundertaken by 'a small cadre of teachers, largelyself-trained, male, constituting an evangelical van-guard amongst CDT teachers as a whole' (DES,1982). Even so, the report was in no doubt that acourse in technology had a strong claim on a placein the curriculum of all pupils until the statutoryschool leaving age. By the end of the decade, theAssociation for Science Education, in contrast tomany of its previous statements about technology,was proclaiming a similar belief, that 'technologi-cal education should form an integral part of everypupil's liberal education' (ASE, 1988). Further-more, a working party of Association membershad been established to explore the contributionsof science to technological education, not leastwhen technology was taught as a separate subjectin the secondary school curriculum. From a situ-ation in which technology was a subordinate ofscience education, the reversal to science as aservice subject for technology education had oc-curred with remarkable speed. Autonomousschool technology had emerged on the curriculumlandscape and the cuckoo in the nest of scienceeducation, now fully fledged, was requiring itsfoster parent to rethink its role.

Design and technology: The broadapproach

With the implementation of the National Curricu-lum in England and Wales, the development ofschool technology moved a significant step for-ward. A Working Group on Design and Tech-nology was established to advise on the attainmenttargets and programmes of study, its terms ofreference being 'to view technology as that area ofthe curriculum in which pupils design and make

useful objects or systems, thus developing theirability to solve practical problems'. Furthermore,the group was to assume 'that pupils will draw onknowledge and skills from a range of subject areas,but always involving science or mathematics'.Special reference was made to the contributions ofart, business studies, CDT, home economics andinformation technology.

The view of technology which was eventuallyincorporated in the Statutory Order expressing therequirements for the subject was uniquely broadcompared with its precursors. This breadth residedin several dimensions. First, the products of designand technology were described in the Order as'artefacts, systems and environments'. Of coursethese are not clear-cut and mutually exclusivecategories; a motor car is simultaneously an arte-fact, a collection of systems and an environment.The description was meant to signal to teachersthat many activities which they had not previouslythought of as 'design and technology' could,perhaps with some modification, be so regarded. Itencouraged the recognition that designing andmaking a stage set for a production of Romeo andJuliet, the planning, preparation and delivery ofinexpensive, nourishing meals to an old persons'home, and the design, construction and arrange-ments for maintenance of an environment for ahamster in a primary school classroom were all asvalid design and technology activities as themaking of a robotic arm to perform a manufac-turing function.

A second dimension of breadth was provided bythe designated contexts in which pupils wererequired to have experience of working. Thesewere stated in the Order to be 'home, school,recreation, community, business and industry'.Not only did this range of contexts provide richopportunities for pupils to identify tasks whichwould engage their motivation and commitment,but also a balanced experience of the use ofdifferent resources of knowledge and skills, and ofoperating within different constraints, was en-sured.

The four attainment targets for design andtechnology (Table 2.1) provide further indicationsof the broad view of the subject which was

20

THE NATIONAL CURRICULUM OF ENGLAND AND WALES

Table 2.1 National Curriculum at :ainment targets for design and technology from the 1990 Order

21

ATI Pupils should be able to identify and state clearly needs and opportunities for design and technologicalactivities through investigation of the contexts of home, school, recreation, community, business andindustry

AT2 Pupils should be able to generate a design specification, explore ideas to produce a design proposal anddevelop it into a realistic, appropriate and achievable design

AT3 Pupils should be able to make artefacts, systems and environments, preparing and working to a plan andidentifying, managing and using appropriate resources, including knowledge and processes

AT4 Pupils should be able to develop, communicate and act upon an evaluation of thc processes, products andeffects of their design and technological activities and of those of others, including those from other timesand cultures

adopted. Attainment target 1 (AT1 ), for example,involved pupils in the unfamiliar and demandingtask of problem construction. Needs and oppor-tunities for design and technology activity do notexist, fully formed, in the various contexts thatpupils investigate. Rather, they 'emerge' from theexercise of imagination, from the interplay ofexisting knowledge and expectations with newobservations, and from the use of communicationskills. The ability to identify and state a need oropportunity for design and technology activity isalso related to the pupil's experience of visualisinga design and technology response.

In working to achieve each of the attainmenttargets, pupils are inescapably faced with valuejudgements of many kinds and the emphasis onthese exemplifies again the broad view of designand technology which has been adopted. Judge-ments about what is worthwhile and feasibleinitiate the activity. Judgements about the appro-priateness of a design, and the means of realisingit , shape the activity; and judgements about thefunctionality and effects of the product determinewhich steps are next required. The range of valuesinvolved is extensive, including technical, econ-omic, aesthetic, social, environmental and moral,and design and technology activity is unavoidablyconce.rned with the identification and recon-ciliation of conflicting values. There is never anysingle 'right answer' to a design and technologyproblem. What we encounter today in the made-world around us is the product of value judgementsin the past, 'hardened history as it has been called.

21

An important aspect of technological capability isthe recognition that there is nothing inevitableabout technological development it could allhave been different, as an understanding of howother cultures have solved common technologicalproblems constantly reminds us. Similarly, anessential element of an education in design andtechnology is a knowledge of the value options anddecisions which have empowered the technologi-cal process in the past and which are doing sotoday. Attainment target 4, with its reference to anevaluation of the processes of design and tech-nology in other times and cultures, has particularrelevance to this point.

Last , but by no means least if only becausethey relate directly to the subject of this book theskills and knowledge necessary for design andtechnological capability contribute to the com-prehensive view enshrined in the Order. The rangeof skills is much more extensive than those techni-cal ones essential for executing tasks with ma-terials, energy and information. Investigational,organisational and planning skills are needed.Similarly, communication in its broadest sense,involving not only talking, listening, reading,writing and graphical representation, but also theability to persuade, negotiate, explain, criticiseand accept criticism, is of paramount importance.

As for knowledge, it has been said that thecorpus of knowledge upon which designers andtechnologists might need to draw is unbounded. Itis not possible to prescribe a mandatory body ofscience or mathematics, for example, which is a

22 TECHNOLOGY'S CHALLENGE TO SCIENCE EDUCATION

necessary prerequisite for design and technologyactivity. Depending on the nature of the task andthe imagination of the designer, different branchesof craft, science and mathematics, as well as othersubjects such as history, and different kinds of tacit`know-how', might all be drawn upon.

Glen Aikenhead (1989) has used the example ofdesigning and making a breathalyser to illustratethe disparate bodies of knowledge which can becalled into play. In this case, they include aworking knowledge of the body's respiratory anddigestive systems, chemical changes, Henry's Lawgoverning the pressure dependence of the solu-bility of gases in liquids and according to thedesign route chosen perhaps something onphotometry or photoelectricity as well. Addition-ally, knowledge of the types of situation in whichthe breathalyser would be used and of consequentrequirements (e.g. ergonomic and psychologicalconsiderations, police practice) would be necess-ary. The instrument's needed speed of response,health and safety regulations, potential marketsize, and mode and cost of manufacture could allbe relevant items of information. If there werealready in existence instruments to perform thesame or similar tasks, their design and technologywould need evaluation. The list could be ex-tended.

Although at present few students in schools arelikely to embark on tasks as demanding as thedesign and making of a breathalyser, the exampleillustrates the general point about the breadth ofknowledge which may be necessary for successfuldesign and technology activities. It also under-scores what is the central concern of this book, theimportance of science to the development ofdesign and technology capability and, at the same

time, the implications for science teachers of theirsubject having to take on the additional role of aresource for design and technology. Teachingabout 'science and applications' or 'science ofapplications' is not the same as teaching 'sciencefor applications'.

References

Aiken head, G. (1989) Logical Reasoning in Science andTechnology. Rexdale, Ontario: John Wiley.

Association for Science Education (1988) TechnologicalEducation and Science in Schools. Hatfield: ASE.

Department of Education and Science (1980) Craft,Design and Technology in Schools: Some SuccessfulExamples. London: HMSO.

Department of Education and Science (1982) Tech-nology in Schools: Developments in Craft, Design andTechnology Departments. London: HMSO.

Department of Education and Science (1985) TheCurriculum from 5 to 16. London: HMSO.

Joseph, K. (1985) Speech at Wembley Exhibition, 22October 1985. DES Press Release.

McCulloch, G., Jenkins, E. and Layton, D. (1985)Technological Revolution? The Politics of SchoolScience and Technology in England and Wales since1945. London: Falmer Press.

Penfold, J. (1988) Craft, Design and Technology: Past,Present and Future. Stoke-on-Trent: TrenthamBooks.

Rogers, E. M. (1964) Teaching science for understand-ing. In Commonwealth Education Liaison Com-mittee, School Science Teaching, pp. 18-27. London:HMSO.

Rose, M. (1988) Craft, dcsign and technology. In K.Selkirk (ed.), Assessment at 16, pp. 166-85. London:Routledge.

Woolnough, B. E. (1975) The place of technology inschools. School Science Review, 156 (196), 443-8.

ICHAPTER 3

Understanding technology 1 The seamless web

Technology as an object of study

Although men and women have been engaged inthe practice of technology since the beginning ofhistory, our understanding of the nature of tech-nology is very recent. In this connection, it isinteresting to look briefly at the formal insti-tutional structures that have been created toexplore the nature of technology. By the openingof the second half of the twentieth century, therewere sufficient scholars working in the field tosupport the foundation of a Society for the Historyof Technology (1958). The Society's journal, Tech-nology and Culture, still pre-eminent in this area ofresearch, has been published since 1959. A pion-eering Bibliography of the Philosophy of Tech-nology appeared first as a special number ofTechnology and Culture in 1973 and volume one ofResearch in Philosophy and Technology, the of-ficial publication of the Society for Philosophy andTechnology, was published in 1978. Alongsidethese developments, and subsequently, universitychairs and departments for the study of technologyhave been established. Regular international con-ferences are held for those working in the field,their activities now extending beyond history andphilosophy into the sociology of technology.

It would be wrong to suggest that no interest hadbeen shown in the practice, products and socialinteractions of technology prior to these develop-ments. The chronicling of inventions, with aparticular focus on their internal workings, goes

23

back at least to the fifteenth century. In thenineteenth century, Samuel Smiles and others hadwritten about the lives of great engineers, whilst inthe early twentieth century A. P. Usher, SigfricdGiedion and Lewis Mumford had each publishedclassic works on a central concern of their age, themechanisation of the Western World. But it wasnot until the second half of the century that moregeneral and institutionalised concerns for under-standing technology became well-founded in aca-demic societies, journals, conferences, universityappointments and research.

It is interesting to set alongside this the rise ofinstitutionalised concerns for the nature of sci-ence. These were predominantly products of thefirst half of the twentieth century. Isis, the leadingjournal for the history of science, commencedpublication in 1912. The first British universitydepartment fo- the history and philosophy ofscience, at 1_ versity College London, wasfounded in 1923. Karl Popper's seminal Logik derForschung was published in Vienna in 1934 andseveral journals such as Annals of Science, Arnbixand Notes and Records of the Royal Society datefrom the mid-1930s also. Without detailing eventsfurther, it would be true to say that the academicfoundations for the original (but later reconsti-tuted) Science Attainment Target 17 (the nature ofscience) in the National Curriculum of Englandand Wales were laid in the first five or six decadesof this century.

24

Technology is not applied science

TECHNOLOGY'S CHALLENGE TO SCIENCE EDUCATION

A question now arises as to why our understandingof technology has lagged behind that of scienceand has only recently become the focus of con-certed academic exploration. One component ofan answer to this is to be found in the first chapterwhere reasons for giving higher status to practicalcapability and for the recent incorporation oftechnology as a component of general educationwere reviewed. Economic success has becomeassociated more with technology than with purescience. It is argued that despite producing moreNobel Prize winners in physics and chemistry perthousand of population than any other country,Britain's economy is still not competing effec-tively. We seem inept at converting scientificachievements into marketable and value-addedproducts.

The previous assumption that technology ismerely the application of science does not seem tohear fruit, and few today who have studied therelationship of science, technology and economicperformance would subscribe to Lewis Mumford'sassertion that:

It was Henry who in essentials invented thetelephone, not Morse; it was Faraday who in-vented the dynamo, not Siemens; it was Oerstedwho invented the electric motor, not Jacobi; itwas Clerk Maxwell and Hertz who invented theradio telegraph, not Marconi and De Fores:.The translation of the scientific knowledge intopractical instruments was a mere incident in theprocess of invention.

(Murnford, 1946: 217-18)

In contrast to this view, the historian of tech-nology, Hugh Aitken, author of a classic study ofthe origins of radio, concludes that:

. . . the content of the technological system thatemerged from the work of Hertz. Lodge andMarconi was by no means uniquely determinedby the nature of the scientific advances made byFaraday and Maxwell.

(Aitken, 1985: 303)

and

. . . while science played an essential role in

making radiotelegraphy possible. it contributedlittle to the technology thereafter . . . A stan-dard manual of the first decade of the twentiethcentury, such as Flcming's authoritative Prin-ciples of Electric Wave Telegraphy . . . is repletewith detail on the design of apparatus and cir-cuits but has nothing to say of scientific contri-butions once the basic phenomena of radiationand resonance arc described. . . Even Fleming'sdiode valve, the strategic invention that usheredin the second phase in the history of radiocom-munications, required no new scientific know-ledge for its discovery. . . The samegeneralization can be made with reference toDe Forest's triode vacuum tube, a device ofmajor technological importance whose principlesof operation the inventor himself did not under-stand and which certainly called for no newinputs of information from science.

(Aitken, 1985: 326)

The image of abstract science as the engineimpelling technological innovations was well bur-nished in the late nineteenth century and sub-sequently, not least by scientists. The discovery bythe 19-year old William Henry Perkin of a syn-thetic dye, later marketed as Tyrian purple, wasonly one of a number of plausible and muchquoted exemplars. To describe Perkin's work, as aPresident of the Chemical Society did in 1857, as 'asuccessful application of abstract science to animportant practical purpose' was misleading, how-ever. Not only had the discovery been accidental,but the process of application had been anythingbut routine and unproblematic:al. The task ofscaling up from a laboratory bench experiment tothe first multi-step, hazard-contained, industrialsynthesis, yielding a product of quality and priceacceptable to a substantial market, confrontedPerkin with formidable problems, not only scien-tific and technological, but economic, environ-mental and legal also (Travis, 1990).

There is now general recognition that tech-nology is more than 'the mere application of priorscientific kr.owledge', not least by economists. Adistinguished member of that community, NathanRosenberg, has argued that 'technology is itself abody of knowledge about certain classes of eventsand activities'. He continues:

24

UNDERSTANDING TECHNOLOGY I THE SEAMLESS WEBB

It is a knowledge of techniques, methods, anddesigns that work, and that work in certainways and with ccrtain consequences. even whenone cannot explain exactly why. It is . . . aform of knowledge which has generated a cer-tain rate of economic progress for thousands ofyears. Indeed, if the human race had been con-fined to technologies that were understood in ascientific sense, it would have passed from thcscene long ago.

(Rosenberg. 1982: 143)

The development costs of modern aircraft are soenormous precisely because we have 'no theoriesof turbulence or compressibility adequate to deter-mine Optimal configurations in advance. Extensivetesting and modification based upon test resultsare still required' (Rosenberg, 1982: 143). 'I'hesituation is caricatured in the epigram: 'the engi-neer doesn't know why his bridge stays up: thescientist knows why his falls down'.

Who lays the golden eggs? Science ortechnology?

Another strand in the quest for improved nationaleconomic performance concerns thc struggle forresources for scientific research. The view taken ofthe relationship between science and technologyhas sharp, practical consequences when applied todecisions about research funding. Should basic,curiosity-oriented research be the major benefici-ary because it is supposed to yield, though unpre-dictably, the knowledge and stimulus for futurematerial benefits? Or is thc desired and unendingsuccession of golden eggs more surely delivered byinvestment in mission-oriented research and de-velopment'? Given the escalating costs of scientificresearch, questions about the most effectivemeans of creating wealth from knowledge areinevitable.

After the Second World War, and capitalisingon their contributions to impressive technologicalachievements which had helped to ensure victory,scientists in both the USA and Britain urged aconcentration of research funds on basic science.In the USA, Vannevar Bush, science adviser to the

25

25

president, argued that 'new products and newprocesses . . . are founded on new principles andnew conceptions which in turn are painstakinglydeveloped by research in the purest realms ofscience' (Bush, 1945: 13-14). Sometime later, inBritain, P.M.S. Blackett, as President of the RoyalSociety, submitted a memorandum to the Parlia-mentary Select Committee on Science and Tech-nology on the most effective future allocation ofresearch funds. His argument was premised on amodel of innovation flowing from pure science:'pure science, applied science, invention, develop-ment, prototype construction, production,marketing, sales and profits' (Blackett, 1968:1108).

Subsequent attempts to quantify and provethese claims proved difficult and often inconclu-sive. In the USA, the Defense Department'sProject Hindsight analysed 20 weapons systemsadopted by the armed forces since the end of thewar. Each system was broken down into innova-tive events in development. Out of a final total of700 such events, only two appeared to be derivedfrom basic scientific research. Ninety per cent ofthc remainder were classified as technological.This result was 'bad news' for the scientific com-munity and was promptly challenged by a study atthe Illinois Institute for Technology funded by theNational Science Foundation (NSF), a notuninterested party. Called TRACES (an acronymfor Technology in Retrospect and Critical Eventsin Science), this explored the genealogies of five'high-technology' innovations, including the con-traceptive pill, the electron microscope and video-tape recording. In contrast to the Hindsight study,the NSF TRACES report claimed that 70 per centof all the critical events in the development ofthese artefacts came from basic science.

Subsequent work in Britain and elsewhere hasconfirmed that science has in the past sometimesbeen 'over-sold' as the fount of material progress.However, it has also demonstrated that science isfar from irrelevant, although its role is often asupporting rather than an initiating one. Forexample, it offers techniques and advice which canbe critically important in the successful develop-ment of a technological innovation. The case of

26 TECHNOLOGY'S CHALLENGE TO SCIENCE EDUCATION

new tungstenhalogen lamp systems for cars illus-trates the point.

The problem was to introduo. , hosphorous and

halogen into the lamp, and phosphonitrilic hal-ides seemed to be a suitable form in which tointroduce them. In initial tests, however, thelamps soon went black. Chemists at a nearbyuniversity suggested that the blacking was notdue to decomposition of the phosphonitrilichalide itself but caused by impurities in thesample. Furthermore, they were able to providea sensitive analytic technique for detecting theimpurities. With pure samples, development ofthe innovation could proceed rapidly.

(Jevons, 1976: 13-14)

The topic of science as a resource for thedevelopment of technological capability is thesubject of a later chapter and is no more thanbroached here. It is clear, however, that simplisticmodels of the relationship between technologyand science must be rejected. Alexander Keller(1984) has pointed out how, in an effort to capturesomething of the complexity and subtlety of theways in which they have found science and tech-nology to interact, researchers in this field havehad to resort to metaphors. A few of these areillustrated below:

Science is not the mother of invention butnursemaid to it: that is, she helps innovation togrow up. Moreover, she depends for her liveli-hood on making herself felt to be useful in thisway. But she does not beget innovation, exceptvery occasionally, illegitimately, under the back-stairs so to speak.

(Jevons, 1976: 18)

Science acts as a background environment fortechnology; it is a pool in which industrialistscan fish 'with greater or less success dependingon their experience and expertise, and luck'.Because scientists are swimming in the poolthey 'can draw thc attention of fishermen to thclocation of thc fish, or even present thcm withsuitable specimens'.

(Gibbons and Johnston, 1974: 241)

Science and technology arc 'mirror-image twins',two 'different communities, each with its owngoals and systems of values'. The communities

26

are interacting; some individuals straddle both;but the goals are different. 'The divisions be-tween science and technology . . . are societal:they arc between communities that value know-ing and doing respectively'.

(Layton, 1971: 565 and 1977: 209)

From technology as artefact to technologyas system

Many of those who have studied the nature oftechnology have not done so from the standpointof economics and with a prime focus on the role oftechnology in the creation of wealth. Criticism ofthe hierarchical dependence model of the sciencetechnology relationships has come from severalother directions. Historians, philosophers andsociologists have all contributed from their par-ticular perspectives to enhance our understandingof the nature of technology.

Early excursions into the history of technologydescribed the invention of artefacts in a chrono-logical narrative. The workings of specific devices,the modifications and improvements made, andthe range of applications provided the grist for thehistorian's mill. Howe: -r, such internalist historyoffered little in the way of explanation why novelartefacts came into being and why they took theform they did. Attempts to provide answers toquestions such as these obliged historians to ex-plore the social, economic, political, legal andscientific contexts of invention, if not the psychol-ogy of inventors. In so doing, some historians suchas Thomas Hughes, author of a prize-winningstudy of the introduction of electric light andpower systems in Western society (Hughes, 1983),were led to view technology as part of a seamlesweb of interactive components in a complex socio-technical system. As Hughes notes, many of thctechnologists he studied 'were no respecters olknowledge categories or professional boundariesIn his notebooks, Thomas Edison so thoroughl)mixed matters commonly labelled "economic""technical" and "scientific" that his thoughts corn .posed a seamless web' (Hughes, 1986: 285).

A related point about the nature of technology hmade by Arnold Pacey in his excellent book Thi

UNDERSTANDING TECHNOLOGY 1 THE SEAMLESS WEBB

CULTURALASPECT

Goals, values andethical codes, beliefin progress,awareness andcreativity

Generalmeaning of'technology'

technologypractice

TECHNICAL ASPECTKnowledge, skill andtechnique; tools, machineschemicals, liveware;resources, products andwastes

27

ORGANISATIONALASPECTEconomic and industrialactivity, professionalactivity, users andconsumers, trade unions

Restrictedmeaning of'technology'

Fig. 3.1 Diagrammatic definition of 'technology' and 'technology practice' (from Pacey, 1983: 6).

Culture of Technology (1983). He draws an anal-ogy with medicine, arguing that medical practicehas not only a technical, but also an ethical and anorganisational element to it, and that the same istrue of technology practice. His diagrammaticrepresentation of this (Fig. 3.1) is interpreted asfollows. We tend to think first of the artefact (themotor car, the word processor, the infrared sensorin a domestic security system, the supermarkettrolley, the greenhouse temperature controldevice) and the 'technical considerations (tools,skills) associated with it. This is a restrictedmeaning of technology. There is also, inevitably,what Pacey calls an organisational aspect and acultural aspect to technology practice. The formerinvolves, among other things, all those planning

and organisational considerations associated withthe production and use of the artefact. The latter isconcerned with the values, beliefs and creativeactivity with which the artefact is imbued.

Stephen Kline, a mechanical engineer and pro-fessor of values, technology and society at Stan-ford University, comes to similar conclusions froman examination of the usages of the word 'tech-nology'. He identifies four (Kline, 1985):

2 7

1 Hardware (or artefacts): non-natural objccts, ofall kinds, manufactured by humans.

2 Socio-technical system of manufacture: all of theelements needed to manufacture a particularkind of hardware; the complete working systemincluding its inputs people, machinery,

28 TECHNOLOGY'S CHALLENGE TO SCIENCE EDUCATION

resources, processes - and the legal, economic,political and physical environment.

3 Technique, know-how or methodology: the in-formation, skills, processes and procedures foraccomplishing tasks.

4 Socio-technic system of use: a system using com-binations of hardwarc, people (and usually otherelements) to accomplish tasks that humanscannot perform unaided by such systems toextend human capacities.

The emphasis on values and value judgements isnot as explicit in Kline's formulation as it is inPacey's, but values are central to the constructionof the two socio-technical systems Kline describes,and it is not difficult to map the two sets ofcategories on to each other.

Present-day experience of development projectsin the Third World reinforces the need to adopt aview of technology which goes well beyond techni-cal and scientific considerations to incorporatefactors as diverse as: user values; financial, pro-duction and maintenance constraints; environ-mental impacts and political will. A well-documented case is UNICEF's rural water supplyand sanitation programme in India.

A supply of potable water to rural villages is amajor contribution to the health and well-being ofthose who live there. UNICEF's project in Indiabegan by the identification and drilling of reliablevillage boreholes which were then fitted withhandpumps to deliver the water. Even with effec-tive drilling techniques and efficient pumps, theseinstallations were only as health-promoting as thesanitary practices of the users, so that an edu-cational programme of basic hygiene was anessential accompaniment.

By 1974, of the handpumps fitted in over 9000villages, some 75 per cent were out of action. Nosystem for the supply of spare parts to villagehandymen was available and there was no main-tenance training. It appeared that an investment ofsix million dollars had yielded little more than 9000holes in the ground.

The problem was that the pumps that wereinstalled were mostly cast-iron copies of farmsteadpumps used in the USA and Europe. Whilst thesewere adequate for use by a single household, they

26

were not designed to withstand continual daily useby an entire village community. The breakdownrate was high and repair difficult. As a result,attempts were made by various organisations todesign a more reliable pump, appropriate to theparticular demands of village use. Eventually, apump was produced which met the stringentdesign criteria, including: low cost; durability;easy installation, maintenance and repair; andcapable of being mass-produced under Indianconditions. A training programme in installationand maintenance procedures was initiated, and aninstructional manual published.

A point of political significance was that thechoice of an appropriate technology for the task, inthis case a low-cost, 'simple' technology, had attimes to overcome disdain from thosf at variouslevels in the administrative hien thy, fromgovernment downwards. Not only poaicians, butthe technical bureaucracy in academia and indus-try, as well as users, had to be persuaded that theapproach was sound and did not entail acceptanceof a 'second-best' or professionally demeaningsolution. Of course, when applied to technology,'appropriate' does not necessarily mean 'primi-tive'. Techniques for discovering groundwater andfor drilling through different kinds of geologicalformations need to be based on the best existingpractice to achieve efficient solutions matched tothe resources available. Furthermore, failure atsome stage or other being a characteristic of alltechnological devices, even the best designedhandpumps will break down. The design of pumpsfor ease of repair by those with little mechanicalexpertise represents a major challenge.

The location of individual pump units in separ-ate villages entailed management of the system ona decentralised basis and, consequently, a highdegree of user responsibility to keep the pump ingood working order and to monitor the quality ofwater being delivered. Because women have had atraditional role in the use of water and wastedisposal, it proved important to ensure that theywere well represented in the development ofinfrastructures to support the system. It was theexperience of the UNICEF project that most ruralwater and sanitation projects found it more diffi-

UNDERSTANDING TECHNOLOGY 1 THE SEAMLESS WEBB

cult to create and set up mechanisms for keepingthe system running effectively than to install it inthe first instance. Establishing warehouses, effec-tive lines of communication and procedures for thedistribution of supplies were all part of the processof building capacity to implement and maintain theprogramme.

A further decentralising step involved the trans-fer of the technology to local manufacturers andsuppliers. The intention here was to reduce thedependency of users on imported and centrallyprovided equipment. At the same time, it openedthe door to a market in low-quality products,cheaper pumps, pipes and spare parts from `piratemanufacturers'. It was necessary, therefore, to putin place a system of quality control involving thestandardisation of parts, a list of approved manu-facturers and training of local personnel in someoperational and maintenance responsibilities.Such measures, particularly thc last, could pro-voke opposition and resistance from those inestablished technical or managerial posts whofeared their jobs and often meagre incomes werebeing threatened.

The achievement of community participationand readiness to practise self-help raised manyproblems. Siting a pump in a village brought intoplay considerations such as control of access bylandowners, the relationship between proximity tothe supply and responsibility for repairs, the needsof women who, although the main users, wererarely property owners, and the means by whichcaretaking and maintenance were to be provided.A complementary and often improvised healtheducation programme had also to be established.In India, the small number of women who werehandpump caretakers werc the only health edu-cation agents linked directly to the UNICEFproject. In Bangladesh, the handpump mechanicstook on the role.

The ultimate goal of the Rural Water andSanitation programme was to achieve a self-sustaining, consumer-driven service with charac-teristics including:

. . the majority of water supply repairs, someproportion of water supply installation (depend-

29

29

ing on technical feasibility) and almost all sani-tation installation, is undertaken independentlyof the service authorities; the fuelling ofdemand by marketing and health educationcampaigns and the growth of public appreciationof service benefits; a change in the authorities'roic to mainly supportive and backstopping in-stead of operational functions.

(Black, 1990: 125)

At the time of writing her fascinating account ofthe UNICEF programme, from which the aboveexample is drawn, Maggie Black was not able toreport that this final stage had been reached in anyof the various projects, in Bangladesh and Nigeriaas well as in India. Nevertheless, she provides arich picture of the seamless web in which atechnological artefact, the village pump, is en-meshed. Only by the well-synchronised function-ing of all components of the system is thetechnology likely to be successful. Also, as shenotes, in terms of implementing the technologicalinnovation, the hardware aspects (Pacey's re-stricted 'technical aspects' of technology practice)of drilling boreholes and constructing pumps rep-resent a minor component only of the total chal-lenge.

References

Aitken, H. G. J. (1985) Syntony and Spark: The Originsof Radio. Princcton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.

Black, M. (1990) From Hand Pumps to Health: TheEvolution of Water and Sanitation Programmes inBangladesh, India and Nigeria. New York: UnitcdNations Children's Fund.

Blackett, P. M. S. (1968) Memorandum to thc SelectCommittee on Science and Technology. Nature, 219,1107-1110.

Bush, V. (1945) Science, the Endless Frontier: A Reportto the President. Washington, D.C.: Office of Scien-tific Research and Development.

Gibbons, M. and Johnston, R. (1974) The roles ofscience in technological innovation. Research Policy,3, 220-42.

Hughes, T. P. (1983) Networks of Power: Electrificationin Western Society. Baltimore, MD.: Johns HopkinsUniversity Press.

Hughes, T. P. (1986) The seamless wcb: technology,

30 TECHNOLOGY'S CHALLENGE TO SCIENCE EDUCATION

science, etcetera, etcetera. Social Studies of Science,16, 281-92.

Jevons, F. R. (1976) Knowledge and Power. Canberra:The Australian National University Advisory Com-mittee on Science and Technology Policy Research.

Keller, A. (1984) Has science created technology?Minerva, 22, 160-82.

Kline, S. J. (1985) What is technology? Bulletin ofScience, Technology and Society, 5(3), 215-18.

Layton, E. (1971) Mirror-image twins: The communi-ties of science and technology in 19th centuryAmerica. Technology and Culture, 12(4), 562-80.

Layton, E. (1977) Conditions of technological develop-

30

ment. In I. Spiegel-Rosing and D. de So Ila Price(eds), Science, Technology and Society: A Cross-disciplinary Perspective. London: Sage.

Mumford, L. (1946) Technics and Civilization. London:Rout ledge.

Pacey, A. (1983) The Culture of Technology. Oxford:Basil Blackwell.

Rosenberg, N. (1982) Inside the Black Box: Technologyand Economics. Cambridgc: Cambridge UniversityPress.

Travis, A. S. (1990) Perkin's Mauve: ancestor of theorganic chemical industry. Technology and Culture,33, 51-82.

CHAPTER 4

Understanding technology - 2 Values,gender and reality

Technology and values

It has sometimes been argued that technology is'neutral' or 'value-free'; it is the use made of thetechnology which determines whether it is 'good'or tad'. For example, it is said that an axe itself is'neutral', but it can be used either constructively ordestructively; similarly, a motor car can both savelife (an ambulance) and destroy it ('joy-riding').

Whilst this argument might seem plausible, itdoes not stand up to close scrutiny. For one thing,as the case of the village handpumps has illus-trated, it is difficult to isolate the material artefactfrom the network of human activities in which it isembedded and hence from the values of people.Also, an artefact, such as the motor car,, canreshape people's values and call new ones intoplay. It makes possible new kinds of action be-tween which people have to choose, i.e. they haveto make value judgements. The availability of thechainsaw opened the way to rapid deforestation,with accompanying economic gain, but this wasoften achieved at the expense of ecological balanceand the loss of rainforests. Because it created thenew possibilities for action, can we call the chain-saw 'neutral'?

More obviously, the conception and realisationof a technological product entails some judgementabout what is worthwhile as an outcome. In theview of the historian of technology, David Noble,

. . . technology bears the social 'imprint' of itsauthors . . . there is always a range of possibili-ties or alternatives that arc delimited over timc

as some are selected and others denied bythe social choices of those with the power tochoose, choices which reflect their intentions,ideology, social positions and relations withothcr people in society.

(Noble, 1991: 14)

The simple cast-iron pump of European farm-steads was reflective of a certain style of socialorganisation; it did not transplant without majormodification into a different cultural context fromthat of its origin.

Writing with the experience of technology trans-fer from industrialised to Third World countries inmind, Susantha Goonatilake goes further, describ-ing technology as a social gene, a carrier of socialrelations from one society to another, whichrecreates in the recipient culture aspects of thesocial system of the donor:

Technology . . . is a transmitter of social re-lations between social systems. In being adoptedby its new host, it 'takes' elements from its ncwenvironment hardware and knowledge as wellas human operators and rearranges them sothat not only does it perform its technologicalfunction but also recreates aspects of the socialsystem of its place of origin. It is thus like avirus, which enters a host cell whose componentmaterial it uses for its food as well as to repro-duce itself.

(Goonatilakc, 1984: 122)

An example is the snowmobile in Lapland.Initially developed in North America and used forwinter sports, the machine rather like a motor-

31

32 TECHNOLOGY'S CHALLENGE TO SCIENCE EDUCATION

cycle on skis was introduced into Lapland andadopted for reindeer herding. The context of usehere was quite different from that in NorthAmerica, where prepared trails between touristcentres and service stations were available. Thefarmers in Lapland needed to acquire new skills tokeep their snowmobiles working and to carryample spares and fuel in case of breakdowns insituations remote from their base. Furthermore,the high capital and running costs of the machinesmeant that not every farmer was able to embark onthe new mode of herding. Those who did wereobliged by the economics of the technology tobuild up bigger herds of reindeer, buying outsmaller farmers who then became waged labourerson the large farm units, or unemployed. Localindustries supplying the needs of the old style ofherding for sledges, skis and dogs went into declineand a dependence arose on foreign manufacturersof snowmobiles for spare parts. In summary, apredominantly egaiitarian society where mostowned and worked their own farms was trans-formed into an inegalitarian and hierarchical one.A new system of social relations had come intobeing.

A similar story can be told about the effects ofthe so-called green revolution in agricultural tech-nology in Asia. American-inspired research hadproduced hybrid grain seeds which gave crops ofoutstanding yields. The transfer of these cereals toIndia, especially following the severe droughts ofthe mid-1960s, undoubtedly contributed to in-creased grain output. The use of the seeds, how-ever, was only effective in conjunction with theapplication of chemical fertilisers and pesticides,and often required electric pump-driven irrigationsystems. Also, new seeds had to be purchased eachyear. The capital-intensive nature of the greenrevolution made it of most benefit to those withlarge farms: the already prosperous grew more so,whilst the technology remained out of the reach ofsmaller and less well-off farmers. Goonatilake's(1984) conclusion is that the technology of thegreen revolution was far from being socially'neutral': it was 'formed and governed by the socialand economic conditions specific to the US of thetime' (p. 136). For him, technology 'is history and

32

social experience in concentrated tbrm' (p. 139).This is similar to David Noble's conclusion derivedfrom a detailed study of the development ofindustrial automation:

Because of its very concreteness, people tend toconfront technology as an irreducible brute fact,a given, a first cause, rathcr than as hardenedhistory, frozen fragments of human and socialendeavour.

(Noble, 1984: xiii)

The technology does not have to be as it is.Other options have been available: what we en-counter is the result of decisions which reflect thevalue judgements of those who shaped a develop-ment which was not inevitable.

Accepting that there is social determination oftechnology, it remains the case that simple obser-vation of an artefact does not usually allow us todiscern the inherent values. Values technical,social, political, environmental, aesthetic or ethi-cal do not stand out on the surface of, say, atelephone handpiece or a hairdryer. However,when the technology is viewed from the perspec-tive of transfer from the cultural context of originto a different cultural context, then, as we haveseen, values are uncovered. Similarly, when con-sidered from the standpoint of adoption why thistechnological artefact rather than that becamewidely used values become visible. Writing aboutthe introduction of steam power technology inSweden in the early eighteenth century, the so-ciologist of technology, John Law, has stateu that:

. . . the success of technology is not a trans-parent issue that has to do with machineryalone, but also, and more basically has to dowith judgements of adequacy by relevant socialgroups . . . Successful technologists are alsosocial engineers thcy operate not only uponnetworks of interrelated objects, but also, andsimultaneously, upon sets of social and econ-omic relations.

(Law, 1987: 568)

In short, the values in the technology must matchthose of its users. When they do not, technologyobsolescence, the inverse of adoption, occurs.Increased concerns for the quality of the environ-

UNDERSTANDING TECHNOLOGY - 2 VALUES, GENDER AND REALITY

ment and the rise to prominence of 'green values'have, for example, led to the replacement of somemanufacturing processes by new ones whichreduce emissions of sulphur dioxide and the so-ca! led greenhouse gases.

Whilst the intimate connection between tech-nology and value judgements is not in question andit is clear that social preferences do influencetechnological developments, it does not followthat technology is totally under human control.Indeed, the counter proposition, technologicaldeterminism, maintains that technology hasbecome autonomous, a force which, Franken-stein-like , has now taken over. Far from beingsociety's servant, technology is society's master,shaping our destinies in ways which seem inevi-table and irreversible.

Even if we baulk at the prospect of extremetechnological determinism, there is general agree-ment that the full extent of the social effects oftechnological innovations is difficult if not imposs-ible to predict. Technology frequently seems tolead a double life: whilst it can fulfil the mostexorbitant intentions of its practitioners, such aslanding a man on the moon and creating weaponssystems of unprecedented destruction, it also, andsimultaneously, produces unintended outcomes.Medical technologies have reduced the death ratein developing countries, but have also contributedto uncontrollable population growth. Food pro-duction has become more efficient through geneticand chemical technologies, but at the cost ofdamage to related ecosystems. No one planned orwanted the effects which DDT has had on birdpopulations, for example, and no one intended tocreate a hole in the ozone layer. In an attempt toexercise greater control over the effects of techno-logical developments, a new branch of study calledTechnology Assessment has come into being. Anexample of the scope of technology assessment aswell as of the range of intended and unintendedeffects of one particular technology, the automo-bile, is shown in Table 4.1. Concern over thecontrol of technology has been one of the strongestmotivations for the increased efforts to understandtechnology which were described at the beginningof Chapter 3.

33

Gender and technology

33

Unlike sex, gender is not a biological or be-havioural reality. It is a construct, shaped over theyears in ways which have resulted in certaincharacteristics and domains of human experiencebeing associated with men and others with women,and with the categories of 'masculine' and 'femi-nine', respectively.

This `gendering' of experience is nowhere moreobvious than in technology. We have come to linkmen with qualities such as assertiveness, aggress-ion, rationality and materialism, along with high-profile technologies to do with machines, com-puters, control, construction, exploration andwarfare. Likewise, women have come to be associ-ated with nurturance, emotionality, passivity andpiety; in so far as they have been seen to haveinvolvements with technologies, these have beenlife-sustaining and life-enhancing (though oftenunsung), related to food, textiles, decoration,childrearing and domesticity. Indeed, the gender-riven nature of technology is even more profoundthan this. We have tended not to think of whatwomen do as in any sense technological, despitetheir involvements in survival technologies sincethe dawn of history. As Patricia Hynes (1989: 9)has expressed it: 'Women have never lived withouttechnology. Yet we have barely a toehold in thediscourse and direction of it.'

The point is reinforced by the fact that mostpeople would have difficulty in naming, say, sixwomen technologists from the whole span ofhuman history. No such problem would be en-countered in the case of men. The great roadmakers, fen drainers, canal and bridge buildersand lighthouse constructors were eulogised innineteenth-century popular writings such as thoseof Samuel Smiles, and heroic accounts of theirachievements were incorporated into the schoolbooks of the times. Smiles called one of his worksMen of Invention and Industry (1884), and it is notuncommon in later histories of technology to findchapters and headings such as 'Men of steam' or'The men who made the railways'. To quotePatricia Hynes (1989) again, women 'have beenrobbed of the history of female technical initiative,

34 TECHNOLOGY'S CHALLENGE TO SCIENCE EDUCATION

Table 4.1 How the automobile has altered our lives (from New Scientist, 24 May 1973, P. 469)

Technology assessment must look as far beyond theimmediate impact of new technology as possible. Thefollowing list of selected impacts of the automobile onsociety shows just how far reaching these impacts can be,and how wide a TA exercise must cast its net. GaborStrasser, director of planning, Columbus Laboratories,Battelle Memorial Institute, Columbus, Ohio, includes thislist in a contribution to the book Technology Assessment ina Dynamic Environment (Gordon & Breach).

Selected impacts of the automobile (1895 to present)ValuesGeographic mobilityExpansion of personal freedomPrestige and material status derived from automobile

ownershipOver-evaluation of automobile as an extension of the self

an identity machinePrivacy insulates from both environment and human

contactConsideration of automobile ownership as an essential part

of normal living (household goods)Development of automobile cultists (group identification

symbolised by type of automobile owned)

EnvironmentNoise pollutionAutomobile junkyardsRoadside litter

SocialChanges in patterns of courtship, socialisation and training

of children, work habits, use of leisure time, and familypatterns

Created broad American middle class, and reduced classdifferences

Created new class of semi-skilled industrial workersSubstitution of automobile for mass transitReady conversion of the heavy industrial capability of

automobile factories during World War II to makeweapons

Many impacts on crimeIncreased tourismChanges in education through bussing (consolidated school

versus 'one room country schoolhouse')Medical care and other emergency services more rapidly

availableTraffic congestionAnnual loss of life from automobile accidents about 60 000Increased incidence of respiratory ailments, heart disease

and cancerOlder, poorer neighbourhood displacement through urban

freeway construction

InstitutionaiAutomotive labour union activity set many precedentsDecentralised, multidivisional structure of the modern

industrial corporation evident throughout the autoindustry

Modern management techniquesConsumer instalment creditUnparalleled standard of livingEmergence of US as foremost commercial and military

power in worldExpansion of field of insuranceRise of entrepreneurshipBasis for an oligopolistic model for other sectors of the

economyLand usage for highways takes away from recreation,

housing, etcLand erosion from highway constructionWater pollution (oil in streams from road run-off)Unsightly billboardsAir pollution lead, asbestos, HC. CO, NO SO,

DemographyPopulation movement to suburbsShifts in geographic sites of principle US manufacturersDisplacement of agricultural workers from rural to urban

areasMovement of business and industry to suburbsIncreased geographic mobility

EconomicMainstay and prime mover of American economy in the

20th centuryLarge number of jobs directly related to automobile

industry (one out of every six)Automobile industry the lifeblood of many other major

industriesRise of small businesses such as service stations and tourist

accommodationsSuburban real estate boomDrastic decline of horse, carriage and wagon businessesDepletion of fuel reservesStimulus to exploration for drilling of new oil fields and

development of new refining techniques, resulting incheaper and more sophisticated methods

Increased expenditure for road expansion andimprovement

Increased federal, state and local revenues throughautomobile and gasoline sales taxes

Decline of railroads (both passengers and freight)Federal regulation of interstate highways and commerce as

a pattern for other fieldsHighway lobby its powerful influence

34

UNDERSTANDING TECHNOLOGY 2 VALUES, GENDER AND REALITY

imagination and nvention. We have lost our placein defining and haping technology' (p. 11). Shecontinues:

In most developing countries, women tendwoodlots, do subsistence farming and are re-sponsible for water supply and waste disposal.Yet development aid and technologies ex-ogenously introduced into these countries haveignored women's knowledge and failed toengage them in the design and use of new tech-nologies. They often dcstroy the environmentalbase which has traditionally been used and con-served by women. In the so-called developedworld, laboratories, research institutes and com-panies are modelled on the patriarchal family,where women function as assistants to fathers,husbands, brothers or sons.

It is important to recognise this deep historic'gendering' process if we are to begin to under-stand technology today. We have come to regard itas a masculine preserve and, conversely, to see itas neither feminine nor a place for women.Women's roles have been limited to those of usersand consumers, with design, decision making anddevelopment monopolised by men. In the UK,over 80 per cent of computer users are women; incontrast, the proportion of females among com-puter science undergraduates is approximately 10per cent. Jan Zimmerman's argument below mighthave been better expressed in terms of masculine-gender values rather than male-sex attributes, butthe general point holds good, nevertheless:

Our communication technologies are inventedby men who don't like to talk to othcr people.Our offices are designed by men who prefer iso-lation. Our cities arc laid out by men who cravedistancc from others. Our utilities are generatedby men who prefer to depend on machines thanon other human beings . .. we seek high-techrefuge from high-tech because the human beinghas been left out; the female part of all of us ismissing and we miss it. If that doesn't explainwhy we need more female engineers, nothingwill.

(Zimmerman, 1986: 53)

Put differently, by adopting the perspective ofgender, we are helped to transcend historic as-

35

35

sumptions about masculine and feminine roles intechnology and to appreciate how our perceptionsand practice of technology have been distorted.More positively, a new, challenging and richerprospect of technology comes into focus.

We are led, for example, to adopt a moreinclusive view of the scope of technological activi-ties. Once we move beyond a view of technology asartefacts, and see it as a social phenomenon, anexpression of human work, the question 'whatcounts as work?' becomes important. The tra-ditional response to this has been in terms of thekinds of paid work undertaken by men. However,it is the case that women, who make up one-half ofthe global population and one-third of the labourforce, are responsible for two-thirds of all workinghours (Rothschild, 1989: 202). Much of this workis unpaid; the women receive only one-tenth ofworld income. Possibly because of its unrewardednature, most of the work that women do hashitherto been judged to fall outside the ambit oftechnology. Revision of this judgement, in thelight of gender considerations, brings into thesphere of technology a range of new activitiesassociated with, for example, the home, the office,clothing, reproduction, nutrition, health and heal-ing. Re-enfranchising this major segment ofunpaid work by women within the bounds oftechnology will hopefully lead to a different rep-resentation of it in cultural life and encouragemore democratic forms of control.

Recognition that the historic gender associ-ations in technology are not immutable has led tothe revision of several aspects of our assessment ofthe social, economic and political effects of tech-nological innovations. For example, it has beenwidely assumed that household technology hasliberated women from domestic servitude andopened the way to other employment in offices andfactories. More recent evidence appears to showthat this is not the case. Despite technologicalchanges which have reduced the physical strengthand skills needed for many jobs, women in indus-try are still concentrated in the less mechanisedoccupations, whilst on the domestic front 'the sex,hours, efficiency and status of the householdworker' are largely unchanged (McGaw, 1989).

I. 26_1 TECHNOLOGY'S CHALLENGE TO SCIENCE EDUCATION

However, women have been far from passivereceivers of household technology. They haveused it to achieve ends which the designers andproducers had not prioritised. In their hands, itbecame a means to longer, healthier lives, moreregular school attendance, upward occupationalmobility and, overall, a higher standard of living.In turn, this testified to the virtues of industrialis-ation to those who viewed it from outside. Onlyoccasionally, the downside has been acknow-ledged, as when Gandhi, about to board his 'planeat the end of his first visit to the UK, was asked by areporter, 'What do you think about Westerncivilization?' After a moment for reflection, thereply came, 'Yes. I think it would be a good idea'.There is a salutary reminder here that the criteriafor judging what is technological progress are byno means universal.

'School technology' and 'real technology'

The picture of technology which this chapter andthe previous one have tried to sketch is one of a

Observecontext

Evaluate

complex, creative and constrained activity, draw-ing upon science as well as other knowledgeresources, but nevertheless very different fromscience in many ways. It is also a picture of anactivity infused with value considerations ofdiverse kinds and whose products, whilst carryingthe imprint of their social origins, can in turnreshape society, often in unpredictable ways. Aquestion now arises about the extent to which'school technology' corresponds to this portrayal.

One strand of evidence which supplies a partialanswer to this question is to be found in schooltextbooks and curriculum materials, and es-pecially in the so-called 'models' of design andtechnology activity which appear there. Some ofthese are intended to represent the interactivenature of the processes involved, two of thembeing illustrated in Figs 4.1 and 4.2. These at-tempts to capture 'thought in action' are undoubt-edly helpful for teaching and examining; indeed, ithas been argued that the 'inter-relationship be-tween modelling ideas in the mind, and modellingideas in reality is the cornerstone of capability indesign and technology' (Kimbell et al. , 1991: 21).

Investigate

Develop ideas

Refining anddetailing

Fig. 4.1 A representation of the interactive design cycle (from Kimbell et al. , 1991: 19).

36

UNDERSTANDING TECHNOLOGY 2 VALUES, GENDER AND REALITY

THE INTERACTION OF MIND AND HAND

IMAGING AND MODELLING CONFRONTING REALITYINSIDE THE HEAD OUTSIDE THE HEAD

Hazy impressions-1(1 Discussion, drawings,

sketches, diagrams,notes, graphs, numbers

Speculating andexploring

Clarifying andvalidating

Criticalappraisal

IMEN .4111111111

111-1

//Modelling in solidto predict or

.,1/../ represent reality

Prototypingor provisionsolutions

AIM= 1111111 IMMO. MII11. MEW 1111111111. NMIThe potential of more The potential of moredeveloped thinking developed solutions

Fig. 4.2 The APU model of interaction between mind and hand (from Kimbell el al. , 1991: 20).

However, they fail to represent some essentialaspects of design and technology, perhaps theirmost significant weakness being their silence onwhat might be called the politics of the activity, i.e.who shapes the decisions at various points in theprocess and in terms of what value considerations.They also imply an individualism which is rarelyencountered in the 'real-world' technology whereteamwork and collaboration are the norm.

It is not that such 'cognitive-processes' modelsof technology are 'wrong', but that, on their own ,

they tell only part of the story and need comp-lementing by others such as the socio-politicalmodel of Pacey in Fig. 3.1. A different 'conceptualframework for technology' that attempts to cap-ture significant features of 'real technology' toinform the development of school programmes isthat of Marc de Vries in the Netherlands (Peters etal. , 1989: 239; see Fig. 4.3). He claims to haveincorporated five characteristics of technology inhis scheme:

3 7

37

1 Technology is a human activity, both for womenand for men.

2 Technology uses matter, energy and hifor-mation as input.

3 Technology and science are interrelated.4 Technology is a process of designing, making

and using products.5 Technology and society are interrelated.

Whilst the 'model' leaves many questions un-answered, and the interactive nature of 'designing,making and using' appears to have been lost, thecast of actors in the drama is richer and the culturalembeddedness of technology is portrayed. Theproposals which stem from the model for thecontent of technology education in Dutch second-ary schools identify three 'subject components':technology and society; working with products oftechnology; and producing technology. This raisesa question about the mutual independence of thesethree curriculum strands.

38 TECHNOLOGY'S CHALLENGE TO SCIENCE EDUCATION

UNIVERSE

NATURE

CULTURE

INorms/values

Luman needs

IScientific knowledge

Mat er

Ene gy

Information

Designing Design

Making

Societynorms/values

Using

Product

Waste

Use

Fig. 4.3 ConeLptual framework for technology developed at the Pedagogisch Technische Hogeschool, theNetherlands.

No such distinctions are found in the 1990Statutory Order for Technology in the NationalCurriculum of England and Wales. Although notin diagrammatic form, as previous models havebeen, the Order does provide a representation oftechnology in the attainment targets, statements ofattainment and programmes of study laid down.Here, knowledge of the interactions of technologyand society and experience of working with tech-nologies are resources inseparable from the acts ofdesigning, making and evaluating and the develop-ment of design and technological capability. Inrelation to attainment target 1 (identifying needs

38

and opportunities for design and technologicalactivities), for example, in order to achieve attain-ment level 5, pupils must be able to 'recognise thateconomic, social, environmental and technologi-cal considerations are important'. In the case ofattainment target 3 (planning and making), toachieve level 6, pupils must be able to 'useknowledge of materials, components, tools,equipment and processes, to change working pro-cedures to overcome obstacles as making pro-ceeds'. Perhaps the best example is attainmenttarget 4, however, which requires pupils to 'actupon an evaluation of the processes, products and

UNDERSTANDING TECHNOLOGY 2 VALUES, GENDER AND REALITY

effects' of their own design and technologicalactivities and 'of those of others, including thosefrom other times and cultures'. To satisfy thisrequirement, they must, among other attain-ments:

understand the social and economic effects ofsome artefacts, systems or environments [level4];understand that artefacts, systems or environ-ments from other times and cultures have identi-fiable characteristics and styles, and draw uponthis knowledge in design and technologicalactivities [level 5];evaluate the ways in which materials have beenused [level 6];understand that artefacts, systems or environ-ments reflect the circumstances and values ofparticular cultures and communities [level 8].

This emphasis on integration of knowledge ofprevious technological achievements and of thecultural variety of technological responses to prob-lems, is reflective of much technology in the 'realworld'. Technological traditions have been forgedthere around modes of training, skill development(often in master/apprentice relationships) andknowledge of previous successes and failures.Much of this technological activity has involvedthe incremental and progressive improvement ofexisting artefacts and devices. By analogy withThomas Kuhn's distinction between 'normal' and'revolutionary' science, such work might be de-scribed as 'normal technology'. The quest for gainsin artefactual characteristics such as speed, poweror efficiency has been undertaken within a con-straining paradigm of decisions about operationalprinciples and artefact configurations.

Aeroplane design provides a good illustration.The operational principle here derives from thefact that the flow of air over the top surface of amoving, curved aerofoil is faster than that over thelower surface. As a result, the pressure of airbelow the wing is greater than that above and this`lifts' the wing. The familiar configuration to putthis into effect is the tubular body with engineforward, tail aft and lateral wing planes. But itdoes not have to be so. Alternatives exist; both the

39

operational principle and the configuration can bechanged, as in the helicopter which flies withoutwings. In the case of vertical take-off and landingaircraft, the engine may be in the tail.

If incremental improvements or applicationswithin a technological tradition, embodying conti-nuity of practice in design and making, constitute'normal technology', then artefactual disconti-nuity, the result of radical innovation in designconception and realisation, is what corresponds toKuhn's 'revolutionary science'. The history oftechnology shows that increasingly, and especiallyin modern times, an important source of innova-tory principles for revolutionary technology hasbeen scientific knowledge. As noted earlier, how-ever, its use is rarely a matter of simple appli-cation.

Not all that children do in 'school technology'can or need be 'revolutionary', although the use ofa new operational principle with which to attack atechnological problem in, for them, a novel way,may count as this. There is considerable edu-cational profit, however, in the critical evaluationand progressive improvement of existing artefactsand systems, and the development of new ways ofusing them. The laser provides a 'real technology'example here: at the time of its discovery, no onecould foresee among its many future applicationsits use in dermatology for the removal of 'portwine' birthmarks. Its adaptation for precisionwork in this field represents a distinct techno-logical achievement. Whatever form `schooltechnology' takes, however `normal' or `revol-utionary' it is important that the resources ofscience are accessible to and exploited by it. A`school technology' which was not symbiotic withscience would fall short of `real technology' indisabling ways.

References

Goonatilake, S. (1984) Aborted Discovery: Science andCreativity in the Third World. London: Zed Books.

Hynes, H. P. (ed.) (1989) Reconstructing Babylon:Women and Technology. London: Earthscan Publi-cations.

3S

40 TECHNOLOGY'S CHALLENGE TO SCIENCE EDUCATION

Kimbell, R., Stables, K., Wheeler, T., Wosniak, A. andKelly, V. (1991) The Assessment of Performance inDesign and Technology. London: School Examin-ations and Assessment Council.

Law, J. (1987) Review of S. Lindquist, technology ontrial: thc introduction of steam power into Sweden,1715-1736. Social Studies of Science, 17(3), 564-9.

McGaw, J. (1989) No passive victims, no separatespheres: A feminist perspective on technology's his-tory. In S. H. Cutcliffe and R. C. Post (cds), InContext: History and the History of Technology,pp. 172-91. London: Associated Universities Press.

Noble, D. (1984) Forces of Production: A Social Historyof Industrial Automation. New York: Alfred A.Knopf.

Noble, D. (1991) Social choice in machine design: The

40

case of automatically controlled tools. In 11. Mackey,M. Young and J. Beynon (eds), Understanding Tech-nology in Education. London: Falmer Press

Peters, H., Verhoeven, H. and de Vries, M. (1989)Teacher training for school technology at the DutchPedagogical Technological College. In M. J. de Vries(ed.), Report PATT 4 Conference: Teacher Educationfor School Technology. Eindhoven: PTH

Rothschild, J. (1989) From sex to gender in the historyof technology. In S. H. Cutcliffc and R C. Post(eds), In Context: History and the History of Tech-nology, pp. 192-203. London: Associated Universi-ties Press.

Zimmerman, J. (1986) Once upon a Fwure: A Woman'sGuide to Tomorrow's Technology. London PandoraPress.

CHAPTER 5

Science as a resource for technological capability

Some preliminary issues of definition andscope

That science and technology are intimately con-nected is not in question. After all, science pres-cribes the so-called 'laws of nature' within whichall technological activity is obliged to take place.For example, technological contrivances cannotflout the law of conservation of energy or thetendency for energy to always change from moreuseful to less useful forms. It is also clear thattechnology is much more than 'mere appliedscience'.

In expioring the relationship, a first step isperhaps the recognition that the terms 'science'and 'technology' do not stand for activities whichare distinct and unrelated. Certainly, at the level ofindividual scientists and technologists today,whether in industry or academia, their work mayentail both scientific investigations and experimen-tation and the design and construction of newsystems and instrumentalities of various kinds.This is not to say that the activities are identical,but that they are inextricably linked in muchday-to-day professional activity.

Furthermore, 'science' is not an unambiguousterm; it frequently needs to be qualified to conveythe different emphases it can be given. An ex-ample is found in the debate over funding ofscientific research in Britain in the early 1970s(Senker, 1991). The central issue here was theextent to which it was possible to establish adistinction between pure and applied scientific

research. Lord Rothschild, head of the govern-ment's Central Policy Review staff, argued, inopposition to the Council for Scientific Policy, thatthe consumercontractor principle provided themeans of doing this. His view was that, in theapplied sphere,

The customcr says what he wants; the contrac-tor does it (if he can); and the customer pays. . . Basic, fundamental or pure research . . .

has no analogous customercontractor basis.(Rothschild, 1971: 3)

Later experience suggested that there was oftena pre-development gap between completion ofacademic research and the demonstration that itcould yield a marketable product within a reason-able time. This led to the concept of 'strategicscience' to denote research additional and parallelto basic research. Its aim was:

. . . to achieve national stratcgic objectives thatmay originate from either of two directions (i)markct pull, when a potential user has recog-nised that morc background knowledge in aparticular field is needed, and (ii) technologypush, when research workers have recognisedthat a discovery may lead on to practical appli-cations.

(Mason, 1983)

Developing this idea, the Advisory Council forApplied Research and Development (ACARD)presented a report to Margaret Thatcher, the then

4 1

42 TECHNOLOGY'S CHALLENGE TO SCIENCE EDUCATION

Prime Minister, on Exploitable Areas of Science,an exploitable area being defined as:

. . one in which the body of scientific under-standing supports a generic (or enabling) area oftechnological knowledge; a body of knowledgeout of which many specific products and pro-cesses may emerge in the future.

(ACARD, 1986: 11)

Without going further, it appears that distinc-tions, though not precise boundaries, can bedrawn between:

purelfundamental science: driven by curiosityand speculation about the natural world withoutthought of possible applications;strategic science: yielding a reservoir of know-ledge, out of which the as yet unidentifiedwinning products and processes will emerge;andapplied science: related to a specific project andtied closely to a timetable with a practicaloutcome often specified by a 'customer'.

In other words, science is not a uniform activityand form of knowledge. There is a spectrum ofpossibilities and, as the ACARD report expressedit, 'science comes in an infinite variety of shapesand sizes' (1986: 15). The content of school sci-ence, however, has historically been drawn verylargely from the first of the three categories above.

Technology, similarly, is diversified and plural.Generic or enabling technologies, sometimescalled key technologies, have been highlighted inmany recent discussions about the means by whichindustries can be made more competitive. Theseare technologies which have the potential to beapplied widely across the industrial civil andmilitary sectors. The list usually includes:

information and communications technology;advanced industrial materials technology;biotechnology; andadvanced manufacturing technology.

(Further Education Unit, 1988: 8)

and converges with arcas of strategic science. Thefull range of technologies is much wider, however.In addition to the above, the American Associ-ation for the Advancement of Science Project 2061

42

identified technologies of energy, agriculture andfood, medicine, the environment, electronics,computers, transportation and space as being richsources of themes and concepts for the technologyeducation of high school students (Johnson, 1989).The list could be extended without difficulty, andcomparison with the content of most previousschool technology programmes serves to em-phasise the narrow range of technologies uponwhich the latter have traditionally drawn.

In exploring the ways in which science can act asa resource for technological activities, it will beimportant to keep in mind that neither science nortechnology is a single, uniform, unchanging entity.It will also help to recognise some distinctionsbetween the ways in which science and technologyhave already been drawn into relationships in theschool curriculum.

I Science and/with technology

Although the reformed science programmes of theearly 1960s were remarkably 'pure', subsequentcurriculum developments have incorporated tech-nological applications and illustrations of 'sciencein action' to a considerable degree. The reasons forthis have been analysed elsewhere (e.g. Fensham1991) and need not be detailed here. For presentpurposes, the significant point is that the courseshave been structured in terms of scientific conceptsand principles, with the technology being 'addedon' to illustrate the application of the science insituations likely to enhance students' interest in,and understanding of, the science. Programmeswith titles such as Science at Work and PhysicsPlus/Chemistry Plus/Biology Plus are representa-tive of this genre.

2 Science of technology

Again with the prime aim of improving the learn-ing of science, other courses were developed thatbegan with a technological context or applicationfrom which scientific principles and concepts werethen derived. Such applications-led or context-based approaches, often termed 'concepts-in-context' courses, are exemplified by Salters' Sci-

SCIENCE AS A RESOURCE FOR TECHNOLOGICAL CAPABILITY

ence and Salters' Chemistry in Britain and Chem-istry in the Community (Chemcom) in the USA.Although the science and technology were drawninto a close relationship, the partnership wasprimarily designed to serve the ends of scienceeducation. Such learning about technology thatoccurred was, as in the previous case, incidentaland secondary to the understanding of science.

3 Science for technology

Quite different from each of the two previous casesis that in which the development of students'technological capability is the main aim and thescience is treated as a resource, along with otherforms of knowledge and skills, in order to achievethis end. Such a relationship between science andtechnology entails a substantial role change forscience: from a major discipline in its own right,studied for its own sake, it becomes a servicesubject. The cathedral is transformed into aquarry, or, as one philosopher of technology hasexpressed it, pure science becomes 'a servant totechnology, a charwoman serving technologicalprogress' (Skolimowski, 1966: 373).

4 ScienceTechnologySociety (STS)courses

Before exploring this role change in greater detail,one further science education development re-quires comment. Throughout the 1980s, ScienceTechnologySociety (STS) programmes were de-veloped in many countries. Technology here wasnot necessarily subservient to science, although infact few of the earlier courses acknowledgedtechnology as more than 'applied science', in-separable from and dependent upon it. The focuswas on societal issues and topics with a strongscicnce and technology dimension and the maincontribution to the aims of an autonomous tech-nology education was through 'technologicalawareness', i.e. awareness of the personal, social,moral, economic and environmental implicationsof technological developments. Later attempts toprovide a conceptual framework for STS courseshave, however, given greater prominence to

43

understanding the nature of technology and itsinteractions with science and soci,;ty (Aikenhead,1986; Bybee, 1987; Layton, 1988). This tends to beat a theoretical level, however, often based on casestudies or simulations, and the opportunities forstudents on STS courses to engage practically inthe design and construction of technological inter-ventions in 'real-world' situations remains limited.Personal involvcment in technological activitiesintended to develop design and technologicalcapability, in its widest sense, has not been adistinguishing feature of STS programmes.

Science as a resource: Some specificexamples

Because the ways in which science can contributeto the development of technological capability aremany and often complex, it may be helpful tobegin with some of the simpler and more obviousexamples. These are cases in which scientificknowledge and technique are brought to bearupon aspects of a technological task directly andwithout need for any substantial modification ofthe science.

Systematic empirical enquiry

Questions such as `Will this material serve for thispurpose?' or 'Which of these materials is mostsuitable for this job?' often arise in design andtechnological activities. Sometimes the propertiesof the materials have already been studied and theanswer to the questions can be found in scientifictables, e.g. the thermal conductivity of a solidmaterial such as cork. Often, however, it will benecessary to design and conduct a small-scaleinvestigation into the working properties of thematerials in question, e.g. which of these availablematerials best repels water under these particularconditions? The ability to identify and controlvariables, to engage in quantitative modes ofworking, and to systematically experiment tooptimise performance of a device are all skillswhich can be borrowed from science and broughtto bear fruitfully on technological activities.

43

44 TECHNOLOGY'S CHALLENGE TO SCIENCE EDUCATION

It was by these means that the Leeds engineer,John Smeaton, in the eighteenth century, achievednotable improvements to the efficiency of theNewcomen steam engine. According to a laterwriter, Smeaton's practice:

. . . was to adjust thc engine to good workingorder, and then after making a careful obser-vation of its performance in that state, someone circumstance was altered, in quantity orproportion, and then the effect of the enginewas tried under such change: all the circum-stances except the one which was the object ofthe experiment, being kept as nearly as possibleunchanged.

(Cardwell, 1972: 83, citing John Farey'sA Treatise on the Steam Engine, London, 1827)

The method of establishing facts by carefullycontrolled experiments is an important contri-bution of science to technology, whether it is at thelevel of industry (e.g. determining the optimumaerodynamic shape of a new car), of a secondaryschool project (e.g. devising a means of ascer-taining whether an electric blanket is safe to useafter a period of summer storage), or of primaryschool pupils thinking up a 'fair test' of possibleconstructional materials.

Quality assurance and control

A second way in which science serves technology isby contributing to the assurance and control of thequality of technological products and of the com-ponents and materials used in their production.The use of analytical techniques by chemists toidentify and remove an impurity in phosphonitrilichalides was critical to the successful manufactureof tungstenhalogen lamps (see p. 26). Many simi-lar examples of the use of chemical techniquescould be given. The treatment of sewage and theprovision of a safe supply of drinking water to citydwellers are obvious cases of technological pro-cesses where constant quality control is essential tothe health of the community. The techniques ofhazardous waste disposal, and of monitoring en-vironmental quality generally, rely heavily on aknowledge of chemistry and use of chemicaltechniques.

The case of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) isillustrative. Approximately one million tons ofPCBs have been produced since manufacturestarted in 1929. These substances are very resistantto attack by acids, alkalis and (other than at veryhigh temperatures) heat, and have been widelyused in industry as cooling fluids in large trans-formers, as insulation in capacitors, in hydraulicsystems, heat exchangers, paints, adhesives, print-ing inks, carbonless copying paper, lubricants andflameproof fabrics. A considerable part of thisproduction has already been released into theenvironment as industrial and commercial waste;in addition, it is estimated that at least 250 000 tonsremain in use and will have to be disposed of in thecoming years as equipment reaches the end of itslife. Because of their great stability, PCBs haveproved to be among the most widespread andpersistent man-made chemicals in the ecosystem.Furthermore, they accumulate in the fatty tissuesof humans, fish, birds and other animals whenPCB-contaminated food is eaten. The toxic andpotentially carcinogenic effects of individual PCBsfound in human tissues and breast milk are thesubject of recent chemical investigations (Bor-lakoglu and Dils, 1991). Although PCB produc-tion has now ceased in most countries, anddisposal by tipping and landfill methods has beenreplaced by new technologies including high-temperature incineration, there have been con-cerns about incomplete reduction to harmlessproducts and especially the contamination of theenvirons of incineration plants by 'dioxins'. Im-proved analytical techniques, sensitive to lowconcentrations, have had to be developed todetermine the presence of polychlorinateddibenzo-p-dioxins (PCDDs) and polychlorinateddibenzofurans (PCDFs) in soil, animal tissue andherbage (Hazardous Waste Inspectorate, 1986).

A further illustration of science serving tech-nology is to be found in industrial contexts wherethe testing of materials by non-destructivemethods is important. For example, aircraft manu-facturers are continually seeking stronger, lighterand more reliable materials and means are neededof measuring and testing non-destructively howconditions of service effect these materials. A case

4 4

SCIENCE AS A RESOURCE FOR TECHNOLOGICAL CAPABILITY

in point is the testing of wear and tear on bearingswhich reduce the friction between the surfaces ofrotating components in a gas turbine engine. Theimportance of such an apparently mundane oper-ation is underlined when it is recognised that failedbearings, and other equipment subject to friction,cost US industry approximately US$40 billion ayear; UK treasury estimates of annual savings toindustry from the proper application of the prin-ciples of tribology (the study of friction andlubrication) are in the region of £4 billion at 1989prices. When, in the mid-1980s, on a North Sea oilrig, a large articulated bearing failed, it resulted intotal seizure of moving parts followed by fracture;part of the rig broke away and became a hazard toshipping. Its retrieval cost more than US$1 million(McLain, 1990).

A number of non-destructive techniques areavailable for monitoring bearing wear, including:

I Spectrometry: appropriate when the metallicdebris shed by worn bearings is very small in size(c. 1 p.m in diameter). A sample of oil from theengine is heated, causing the metals in the debristo emit light of a characteristic wavelength.From this, the extent of bearing wear can bedetermined.

2 Ferrography: a technique suitable for use whendealing with larger metallic particles (c.1-50 p.m). Magnetic debris from lubricantsamples is extracted and changes in particletype, shape and size are related to mode of wear.

3 Magnetic chip detection: magnetic chip col-lectors pick up debris from the circulating oilsystems. The technique is sensitive to the largersize of particles associate i with 'spalling', whenpieces of metal tear away from bearings. Thepresence of such particles, about 200 p.m indiameter, can be used to alert operatives that abearing needs replacement or, in certain cases,to trigger the automatic shutdown of an engineor motor because wear has reached a dangerouslevel (McLain, 1990).

Perhaps nowhere is quality control of moredirect importance for people than in the foodindustry. Northern Foods plc, a food manufac-turer which supplies retail outlets such as Marks &

45

Spencer, in a publication for sixth-formers describ-ing the industry, used the example of freshly madesandwiches to illustrate the point.

Consider the micro-biological implications ofplacing prawn, cucumber and tomato next toeach other in brcad and buttcr. Spores, bacteriaand friendly growth media abound which isfine if you cat your prawn sandwich fresh, sayhalf an hour after it is made. But a food manu-facturer has to make such sandwiches for sale ina store many miles away. The standard of hy-giene in even the most scrupulously clean homekitchens wouldn't do. We need something morelike a hospital operating theatre, with the goodsthen packed and transported at controlled tem-peratures to keep bacterial growth stable be-cause temperature control can only be trulyeffective if thc dish to be controlled meets abacterial standard at thc start. Therefore tech-nologists have to identify in advance the prob-lems of a ncw recipe, analyze the hazards,preferably remove them from human control,but definitely design a no-fail bacterial countinto the manufacturing process.

(Northern Foods, 1988: 4-5)

It is clear that without scientific knowledge andtechniques, such food manufacturing processescould not be developed. Indeed, Northern Foodplc subtitles its publication Chemical and Biologi-cal Science in the Future's Food Industry.

'Doing science' and 'doing technology':process considerations

It has sometimes been argued that there is ageneral problem-solving process, the activities inwhich scientists and technologists engage beingsimply particular illustrations of this and havingmuch in common. Table 5.1 summarises one suchview of the relationship which was discussed at anInstitute of Physics Conference on the interactionsof physics and technology (Schilling, 1988: 19-20).

The implication is that mastery of the processesof 'doing science' will benefit those 'doing tech-nology' not merely because systematic empiricalenquiry will provide evidence which is of directuse, but, more significantly, because the processes

45

46

Table 5.1 Problem-solving processes

TECHNOLOGY'S CHALLENGE TO SCIENCE EDUCATION

General model for problem solving Science process Technologyldesign process

Understand the problem

Describe the problem

Consider alternative solutions

Choose one solution

Take action

Evaluate the product

Consider a natural phenomenon

Describe the problem

Suggest hypotheses

Select one hypothesis

Experiment

Does result fit hypothesis?

Determine the need

Describe the need

Formulate idcas

Select one idea

Make product

Test product

themselves are very similar. Certainly, when theInterim Report of the Secretary of State's WorkingGroup on Design and Technology was publishedin 1988, it drew critical comment from bodies suchas the Secondary Science Curriculum Review(SSCR) and the Association for Science Education

PROBLEM generationperception

REFORMULATION- into form open to

investigation- deciding what to

measure

PLANNING AN EXPERIMENT- setting up conditions

(ASE) because of an alleged overemphasis on thedifferences between the processes of science andtechnology. According to the ASE (1989: 53),many activities of science and technology in whichpupils engaged at Key Stages 1 and 2 wereidentical. For the SSCR, the differences between

FURTHERREFORMULATION

CHANGE INDESIGN

CHANGE INTECHNIQUE

SOLUTION

If

EVALUATION OF RESULTSin terms of:

reformulationdesigntechniques, etc.

INTERPRETING DATA ANDDRAWING CONCLUSIONS

CARRYING OUT EXPERIMENTusing apparatus

- making measurements

RECORDING DATAtablesgraphs

Fig. 5.1 The APU science problem-solving model.

46

SCIENCE AS A RESOURCE FOR TECHNOLOGICAL CAPABILITY

science and technology reside not in the processesbut 'in the nature of the purposes and products ofthe two activities' (SSCR, 1989: 14).

In order to explore further the extent to which'doing science' is the same as 'doing technology', itis helpful to compare models of the processeswhich have some empirical foundations in obser-vations of children working on science and tech-nology problems (Figs 5.1 and 5.2). At first glance,it would seem that the two activities share severalcommon features. Both are purposeful activities,both involve value judgements and both requirethe modelling of ideas and 'visionary thinking'.Furthermore, the descriptions of the activitiesemploy common terms, such as 'generating aproblem/detailing a problem', 'planning' and'evaluation'.

Observing a context

Evaluation

Detailing aproblem

Research

47

Closer inspection reveals significant differences,however. For example, neither model says any-thing about the constraints under which the activi-ties take place. The difference is well illustrated bythe account of the biologist V. B. WigglesworthFRS, writing in 1955 about the experience of purescientists recruited to work on practical war-timeproblems:

In the pure science to which they were accus-tomed, if they were unable to solve problem Athey could turn to problem B, and while study-ing this with perhaps small prospect of successthey might suddenly come across a clue to thesolution of problem C. But now they must finda solution to problem A, and problem A alone,and there was no escape. Furthermore, thereproved to be tiresome and unexpected rules

Making

More information may beneeded before refinementis possible

Refiningideas

Planning themaking

soiz,

N.° ADetailing a

'bsolution

\-,

e,,a`' kz\ ,A: Oz

cP

Fig. 5.2 An interacting design cycle.

Exploringpossibilities

47

48 TECHNOLOGY'S CHALLENGE TO SCIENCE EDUCATION

which made the game unnecessarily difficult:some solutions were barred because the ma-terials required were too costly; and yet otherswere excluded because they might constitute adanger to human life or health. In short, theymade the discovery that applied biology is not'biology for the less intelligent', it is a totallydifferent subject requiring a totally differentattitude of mind.

(Wigglesworth, 1955: 34)

The physical chemist Michael Polanyi FRSmakes the same point in different words:

In feeling his way towards new problems, incollecting clues and pondering perspectives, thctechnologist must keep in mind a whole panor-ama of advantages and disadvantages which thescientist ignores. He must be keenly susceptibleto people's wants and able to assess the price atwhich they would be prepared to satisfy them.A passionate interest in such momentary con-stellations is foreign to the scientist, whose eyeis fixed on the inner law of nature.

(Polanyi, 1958: 178)

The point underlines that both the models underreview, whilst they refer to 'evaluation', are silenton the criteria to be used. For science, if the theoryor hypothesis 'fits the facts', if it does not breachthe canons of good scientific practice (e.g. parsi-mony, replicability), then contextual preferencesexternal to science play no part. In contrast, theproducts of technological activity have to satisfydiverse external criteria. Not only must the prod-uct 'work' (i.e. do what it was intended to do), butalso it must satisfy a range of other conditionswhich may include environmental benignity, cost,aesthetic preferences, ergonomic requirementsand market size. 'Doing science' is different,therefore, from 'doing technology', and to suggestthat the processes correspond is misleading. Itfollows that expertise in 'doing science' is noguarantee of technological capability. The onlyqualification to add to this assessment is that, asdescribed in the first section of this chapter,science comes in various 'shapes and sizes' (seep. 42), some of which such as strategic andapplied science call into play external consider-ations which rarely afflict pure science. In these

cases, the processes of 'doing science' and 'doingtechnology' draw closer. As mentioned earlier,however, these are not the varieties of scienceupon which most school science is modelled.

Operational principles and scientificknowledge

In embarking on the designing and making of anydevice (artefact, system or environment), a funda-mental requirement is what Michael Polanyi hascalled the operational principle of the device. Hemeans by this what would be embodied in a patent,i.e. a description of 'how its characteristic parts. . . fulfil their special function in combining to anoverall operation which achieves the purpose'(Polanyi, 1958: 238). This is different from astatement of scientific knowledge. As Polanyipoints out, patent law:

. . . draws a sharp distinction between a dis-covery, which makes an addition to our know-ledge of nature, and an invention, whichestablishes a new operational principle servingsome acknowledged advantage . . . only the in-vention will be granted protection by a patent,and not the discovery as such.

(Polanyi, 1958: 177)

The operational principle also serves to define aclass of devices (e.g. clocks, cameras, microwaveovens, knitting machines), representatives ofwhich all operate on the same principle. Accordingto Polanyi, however, a knowledge of science'would in itself not enable us to recognise' such adevice (1958: 330). He uses the example of a teamof physicists and chemists confronted by a grand-father clock and able to investigate it by all thescientific means at their disposal, without beingable to refer to any operational principles. In thesecircumstances, they would not be able to concludeit was a clock because the questions 'Does thisthing serve any purpose and, if so, what purpose,and how does it achieve it?' can be answered onlyby testing the device practically as a possibleinstance of known, or conceivable, machines. AsPolanyi concludes, 'The complete (scientific)knowledge of a machine as an object tells us

48

SCIENCE AS A RESOURCE FOR TECHNOLOGICAL CAPABILITY

nothing about it as a machine' (p. 330) and 'theclass of things defined by a common operationalprinciple cannot be even approximately specifiedin terms of physics and chemistry' (p. 329).

It would appear that there are two distinct kindsof knowledge involved here, the technological andthe scientific, with the former in no way dependenton the latter. Of course, once having recognisedthe device under investigation as a clock andgained some understanding of the way in which thedifferent components function (e.g. there areweights whose fall under gravity provides the drivefor the device; there is a pendulum whose regularperiod of swing controls the speed at which theclock works; there is an escape mechanism which isreleased by the pendulum swings; there are handswhich turn to indicate the passage of time, etc.), itmay be possible to use scientific knowledge andtechniques to improve the working of the device.For example, its efficiency may be improved byreducing friction; its life extended by reducingcorrosion or employing new materials. Also, suchknowledge may be valuable in explaining malfunc-tions and failure. But scientific knowledge is ofvalue only to the extent that it can be related to theoperational principles of the device.

Although the operational principle has its ori-gins outside science and cannot be derived as amatter of logical entailment from the body ofscientific knowledge, there may be clues in thelatter which help to suggest new operationalprinciples and new classes of devices. Withoutknowledge of the properties and sources of infra-red radiation, it would not have been possible toconstruct thermal-imaging cameras and developthe Forward Looking Infra-Red (FLIR) systemused in air/sea rescues. Knowledge that atomicnuclei with an odd number of nucleons possess netspin and hence a magnetic moment which re-sponds to the presence of a magnetic field under-lies the development of the technique of nuclearmagnetic resonance imaging, now widely appliedin medicine. Designer molecules of new sub-stances, such as Sucralose, Tate and Lyle's calorie-free sweetener, could not be made without adetailed understanding of the structure of organicsubstances and techniques for manipulating

49

changes in functional groups of atoms, eventhough scientists do not have a theory to explainflavour and why some molecules produce a 'sweet'sensation in the mouth. The size of the develop-ment costs of a new sweetener for the worldmarket today, estimated at in excess of £200million (Cookson, 1991), is an indication that,although scientific knowledge may suggest newoperational principles, its conversion into them isanything but a straightforward matter.

Scientific concepts and design parameters

Writing about the transfer of knowledge betweenscience and technology, as evidenced by his de-tailed study of the origins of radio, Hugh Aitkenconcluded that:

Information that is generated within one systcmexists in a particular codcd form, recognisableby and useful to participants in that system. If itis to be transferred from one system to another

say from science to technology . . . it has tobe translated into a different code, convertedinto a form that makes sense in a world of dif-ferent values.

(Aitken, 1985: 18-19)

In other words, the knowledge that is constructedby scientists in their quest for understanding ofnatural phenomena is not always in a form whichenables it to be used directly and effectively indesign and technology tasks.

An illustration may help to clarify this point. Ithas been estimated that water- and excreta-relateddiseases account for 80 per cent of all sickness indeveloping countries and are responsible for some25 million deaths each year, with children beingespecially at risk. Biological approaches to theunderstanding of excreta-related diseases yieldclassifications in terms of their causal agents suchas viruses, bacteria, protozoa and helrninths.Whilst these are of value in treating the diseases,they do not readily assist the design of practicalinterventions and the application of limited re-sources which have as their objective the reductionof excreta-related infections.

Public health engineers have, therefore, had to

4S

50 TECHNOLOGY'S CHALLENGE TO SCIENCE EDUCATION

Table 5.2 Environmental classification of excreta-related diseases (from Feachcm et al., 1983)

Category Features" Infections Dominant transmissionfoci

Major control ;:rategies

III

Iv

Non-latent, lowinfectious dose (< 100organisms)

Non-latent, medium orhigh infectious dose(> 10 000 organisms),moderately persistentand able to multiply

Latent and persistentwith no intermediatehost; unable to multiply

Latent and persistentwith cow or pigintermediate host;unable to multiply

V Latent and persistentwith aquaticintermediate host(s);able to multiply (exceptDiphyllobothrium)

VI Excreta-related insectvectors

EnterobiasisEnteric virus infectionsHymenolepiasisAmocbiasisGiardiasisBalantidiasis

TyphoidSalmonellosisShigellosisCholeraPath. E. coli enteritisYersiniosisCampylobacter enteritis

AscariasisTrichuriasisHookworm infectionStrongyloidiasis

Taeniasis

ClonorchiasisDiphyllobothriasisFascioliasisFasciolopsiasisGastrodiscoidiasisHeterophyiasisMetagonimiasisParagonimiasisSchistosomiasis

Bancroftian filariasis(transmitted by Culexpipiens), and all theinfections listed inCategories IIII whichmay be transmitted byflies and cockroaches

Personal contaminationDomestic

contamination

Personal contaminationDomestic

contaminationWater contaminationCrop contamination

Yard contaminationField contaminationCrop contamination

Yard contaminationField contaminationFodder contamination

Water contamination

Insects breed in variousfaecallycontaminated sites

Domestic water supplySanita. y educationImproved housingProvision of toilets

Domestic water supplySanitary educationImproved housingProvision of toiletsTreatment prior to

discharge or re-use

Provision of toiletsTreatment prior to land

application

Provision of toiletsTreatment prior to land

applicationCooking of meatMeat inspection

Provision of toiletsTreatment prior to

dischargeControl of animal

reservoirsControl of intermediate

hostsCooking of fish and

aquatic vegetables

Identification andelimination ofsuitable breedingsites

° Latency: a latent organism requires some time in the extra-intestinal environment before it becomes infective toman. Persistency refers to the ability of an organism to survive in the extra-intestinal environment.

50

SCIENCE AS A RESOURCE FOR TECHNOLOGICAL CAPABILITY

construct different types of classification bettersuited to their ends. One such is an environmentalclassification based on the environmental trans-mission pattern of the diseases (Table 5.2). Thoseinfections in Categories I and II are due to agentssuch as viruses, protozoa and bacteria which caninfect immediately after excretion, but whichcannot survive for long outside a human host. Theprevalence of such diseases suggests they arespread by direct faeco-oral transmission routessuch as occur when people lack sufficient water forpersonal and domestic hygiene. A priority for theircontrol, therefore, is the improvement of domesticwater supplies, along with a programme of sani-tary education. In contrast, infections in Cat-egories III, IV and V are due to helminths whichrequire some time outside their human host tobecome infective again and which can survive forextended periods in environments outside thehuman intestine. Control here would give a highpriority to improved sanitation facilities (Mara,1983: 48-9).

The essential point here is that design par-ameters do not always map neatly and precisely onto the parameters in terms of which scientificknowledge has been constructed. As Aitkendeployment of available resources and the aims ofassociated health education programmes.

The essential point here is that design par-ameters do not always map neatly and preciselyon to the parameters in terms of which scientificknowledge has been constructed. As Aitkennoted, the latter has frequently to be reworked if itis to becime of technological use. Making thesame point differently, John Staudenmaier hasargued that technological knowledge, possessionof which empowers in the field of practical actionand enables effective interventions in the madeworld, is not the same in form and sometimes insubstance as knowledge produced by the basicsciences. It is knowledge which is structured by thetension between the demands of functional designon the one hand (i.e. it must enable some practicalpurpose to be achieved) and the specific con-straints of the context of working on the other (i.e.it must satisfy externally imposed requirementssuch as the need to maintain environmental qual-

51

ity, to match the skills of available personnel andthe characteristics of available materials and com-ponents) (Staudenmaier, 1985: 104). This inte-gration of 'the abstract universality of a designconcept and the necessarily specific constraints ofeach ambience in which it operates' would seem tobe the primary cognitive problem of technologicalknowledge (Staudenmaier, 1985: 111) (see Fig.5.3).

The contrast between the detailed specificityand design functionality of technological know-ledge and the abstract generality and design-unrelated nature of scientific knowledge is wellexemplified by consideration of the steam engine.For the practical task of aesigning and building asimple Newcomen engine which would deliver aspecified amount of work in a particular context,decisions were needed about such variables as thediameter and length of the steam cylinder, thelength of the piston's stroke and the number ofstrokes per minute. The construction of somethinglike a stuffing-box, to prevent escape of steamwhilst the piston was being driven upwards, at thesame time permitting the piston rod to pass andre-pass, had to be accomplished. Some means ofcondensing the steam was necessary to allow thedown-stroke of the piston and the resumption ofthe cycle. Preferably, as James Watt realised, thisshould not cool the cylinder and piston; otherwise,heat would be needed to restore their tempera-tures before steam could drive the piston upwardsagain. Safety and other valves would have to bedesigned and positioned and materials chosen forthe construction of the various parts of the engine.These, and related considerations, were the pre-occupations of those who laboured to build steamengines that would enable water to be pumpedfrom deep mines and, later, ships, railway enginesand factory machinery to be driven.

All this was in sharp contrast to the concerns ofWatts' younger contemporary, Sadi Carnot,across the Channel. Whilst Carnot was well awareof the social and economic significance of steamengines, he was critical of the level of understand-ing of them. It was his contention that:

The phenomenon of the production of motion

51

52 TECHNOLOGY'S CHALLENGE TO SCIENCE EDUCATION

Technological knowledge is not the same in form and sometimes insubstance as the knowledge generated by the basic sciences

Basic scientific Technologicalknowledge knowledge

Characterised by

generality

comprehensiveness

Demands offunctionaldesign

To achieve somedesign purpose

Particular

specific

unique

Knowledge structured by thetension between the demandsof functional design andthe specific constraints ofthe ambience

Technologicalknowledgestructurallyorientatedtowardsconcretepraxis

Constraintsof theambience

Contextualconstraints,e.g. dead-lines: cost:ecologicalrequirements,etc.

Fig. 5.3 Technological knowledge: Knowledge which empowers its possessors in the field of practical capability,enabling them to operate effectively in the made world.

by heat has not been considered from a suf-ficiently general point of view . . . In order toconsider in thc most general way thc principleof the production of motion by heat, it must beconsidered independently of any mcchanism orany particular agent. It is necessary to establishprinciples applicable not only to steam-engines,but to all imaginable heat-engines, whatever the

working substance and whatever the method bywhich it is operated.

(Carnot, 1960: 6)

From his memoir, Reflections on the Motive Powerof Fire and on Machines Fitted to Develop thatPower, first published in 1824, it is clear thatCarnot had an intimate knowledge of the construe-

52

SCIENCE AS A RESOURCE FOR TECHNOLOGICAL CAPABILITY

tion and workings of heat-engines of many types.In the course of his 'argument, he discussed theadvantages and disadvantages of engines usingdifferent 'elastic fluids' such as atmospheric air,alcohol vapour and steam, as well as solids andliquids. But practical considerations were tran-scended in his quest for general principles whichwould apply irrespective of the type of engine.These he established, though using the termin-ology of his age, including the concept of heat as afine fluid called caloric. The conditions for themost effective possible operation of a heat-enginewere that the working substance had the sametemperature as the heat source at the beginning ofits expansion and the same temperature as thecondenser at the end. In other words, an engine ofperfect efficiency would carry the working fluidthrough a complete cycle, beginning and endingwith the same set of conditions.

Whilst the universality and insight of Carnot'stheorising is remarkable his memoir has beendescribed as 'the most original work of genius inthe whole history of the physical sciences andtechnology' (Cardwell, 1972: 129) its very gen-erality and abstractness made it of little immediateusc to those constructing steam engines. Allowedone book from which to derive guidance on thebuilding of a steam engine, few of his contempor-aries or even later engineers, would have chosenCarnot's memoir in preference to other morepractical books.

Carnot himself readily acknowledged the rare-fied nature of his conclusions. In the final section ofhis work. when reviewing the ability of existingengines to make use of all the heat energy in coalburnt to raise the steam, he wrote:

We should not expect ever to utilize in practiceall the motive power of combustibles . . . Theeconomy of thc combustible is only one of theconditions to be fulfilled in hcat-cngincs. Inmany cases it is only secondary. It should oftengive precedence to safety, to strength, to thedurability of the engine, to the small spacewhich it must occupy. to the small cost of in-stallation, etc. To know how to appreciate ineach case, at their true value, the considerationsof convenience and economy which may present

53

themselves; to know how to discern the moreimportant of those which are only secondary; tobalance them properly against each other, inorder to attain the best results by the simplestmeans: such should be the leading character-istics of the man called to direct, to co-ordinatethe labours of his fellow men, to make themco-operate towards a useful end, whatsoever itmay be.

(Carnot, 1960: 59)

This was a fine statement of the technologist's rolein resolving considerations which were often con-flicting. Whilst it is debatable whether 'thermo-dynamics owes more to the steam-engine than thesteam-engine owes to thermodynamics', Carnotwas clear that thermodynamics, the foundations ofwhich he was laying, was a necessary though notsufficient resource for the building of usefulengines. It needed to be integrated with otherkinds of knowledge to realise its potential in theworld of practical action.

It is sometimes the case that, as Staudenmaierasserted, technological knowledge is not onlydifferent in form but also in substance fromscientific knowledge. The reworking of science forarticulation with practical action may yield newformulations and concepts which are betteradapted io the needs of technological activity. Forexample, data may be 'collapsed' to producepractical measures such as the UK NationalEnergy Foundation's National Home EnergyRating (NHER: a 1(1-point scale). The aim here isto provide architects, builders and surveyors with aready means to calculate the energy costs of ahouse, a score of 10 being indicative of high energyefficiency (Clover, 1990).

Further examples are to be found in engineeringhandbooks; the design requirements for mechani-cal building systems draw upon concepts such as'effective sensible heat ratio' and 'ventilation cool-ing load', which find no place in academic physicstexts. Interior lighting designers work with con-cepts such as 'discomfort glare' and 'disabilityglare'. From a different field, pharmacologists, fortheir particular purposes, do not categorise chemi-cals, as chemists do, in terms of molecular struc-tures and functional groups. A more useful

53

54 TECHNOLOGY'S CHALLENGE TO SCIENCE EDUCATION

classification is according to human responses tothe substances, e.g. stimulants, depressants, de-congestants, analgesics, vasodilators.

The adaptation and reformulation of theoreticalknowledge from science in order to producetechnological knowledge have been the subject ofrecent research by historians of technology. Onewell-explored case is the invention and develop-ment of the AC induction motor in the closingdecades of the nineteenth century. The work ofmen like Charles P. Steinmetz, the AC expert ofthe General Electric Company in the USA, in-volved departing from the classical Maxwellianelectromagnetic theory in order to take accountmore effectively of energy losses caused by hyster-esis, eddy currents and magnetic leakage, whichdetermined the actual performance of motors.Maxwell's approach included a coefficient of self-induction which conflated both useful and leakageflux, so reducing its value as a design parameter.Steinmetz introduced new concepts such as 'leak-age inductance' and 'primary admittance', whichenabled more accurate calculations of motor per-formance to be made. He also derived an 'equiv-alent circuit' for the induction motor, which gaveengineers a visual understanding of the physicalrelationships modelled in his mathematical equa-tions and which aided design work (Kline, 1987).

Cathedra!, quarry or company store?

Some of the ways in which science is an essentialresource for the development of technologicalcapability have been reviewed in this chapter.From its purest form the cathedral dedicated toan adventure in ideas about the natural world canbe drawn methods of experimental and quanti-tative investigation and mathematical modellingprocedures, tools of wide applicability. The ca-thedral is also the repository of the natural laws towhich all technological devices must comply, aswell as of newly discovered phenomena which cansuggest novel and improved ways of tacklingtechnological problems.

What is also apparent, however, is that tech-nologists in their work can rarely specify in ad-

vance what items from the cathedral will prove tobe of most use to them. For them, the cathedralhas to be treated as a quarry, visited and revisitedless to marvel at the beauty of the creations therethan to search out those items which look asthough they might be of use. Carefully wroughtconceptual edifices may be raided, without regardto form and structure.

As we have seen, perhaps to protect the ca-thedral, workshops for science have been createdwhere strategic and applied investigations pre-dominate. The products of these go at least someway to providing technologists with what theyseek, if not in shaping their needs. They also beginthe process of adaptation and reformulation ofpure science in order to make it more directlyapplicable in technological situations. To someextent, they may be seen as company stores wherethe products of the cathedral are reorganised andremodelled to make them more accessible topractical users rather than worshippers. The impli-cations for the school curriculum of these variousrelationships between science and technology areclearly important and are the subject of the nextchapter.

References

Advisory Council for Applied Research and Develop-ment (1986) Exploitable Areas of Science. London:HMSO.

Aikenhead, G. (1986) The content of STS education.Missive to the ScienceTechnologySociety ResearchNetwork, 2(3), 17-23.

Aitken, H. G. J. (1985) Syntony and Spark. The Originsof Radio. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.

Association for Science Education (1989) Response tothe Interim Report of the National CurriculumDesign and Technology Working Group. SchoolTechnology, 22(2, 3), 53-5.

Borlakoglu, J. T. and Dils, R. R. (1991) PCBs in humantissues. Chemistry in Britain, 27(9), 815-18.

Bybee, R. W. (1987) Science education and the ScienceTechnologySociety (STS) theme. Science Education,71(5), 667-83.

Cardwell, D. S. L. (1972) Technology, Science andHistory. London: Heinemann.

54

SCIENCE AS A RESOURCE FOR TECHNOLOGICAL CAPABILITY

Carnot, S. (1960) Reflections on the Motive Power of Fireand Machines Fitted to Develop that Power (translatedand edited by R. H. Thurston). In E. Mendoza (ed.),Reflections on the Motive Power of Fire. pp. 1-59.New York: Dover Publications.

Clover, C. (1990) Heating takes a beating around thehome. The Daily Telegraph, 23 July, p. 17.

Cookson, C. (1991) Rich treats in the sugar bowl.Financial Times, 12 September, p. 33.

Department of Education and Science (1988) NationalCurriculum Design and Technology Working GroupInterim Report. London: DES and the Welsh Office.

Feachem, R. G., Bradley, D. J., Garlick, H. and Mara,D. D. (1983) Sanitation and Disease: Health Aspectsof Excreta and Waste Water Management. Chichester:John Wiley.

Fensham, P. J. (1991) Science and technology edu-cation: A review of curriculum in these fields. In P. W.Jackson (ed.), Handbook of Research on Curriculum1991. New York: Macmillan for American Edu-cational Research Association.

Further Education Unit and the Engineering Council(1988) The Key Technologies: Some Implications forEducation and Training. London: FEU.

Hazardous Waste Inspectorate (1986) Hazardous WasteManagement: 'Ramshackle and A ntediluvian'? SecondReport. London: Department of the Environment.

Johnson, J. R. (1989) Technology: Report of the Project2061 Phase I Technology Panel. Washington, D.C.:American Association for the Advancement of Sci-ence.

Kline, R. (1987) Science and engineering theory in theinvention and development of the induction motor,1880-1900. Technology and Culture, 28(2), 283-313.

Layton, D. (1988) Revaluing the 1' in STS. InternationalJournal of Science Education, 10(4), 367-78.

55

Mara, ID. ID. (1983) The works and days of sanitation.The University of Leeds Review, 26, 45-57.

Mason, R. (1983) A Study of Commissioned Research.London: HMSO.

McLain, L. (1990) Systems to keep the ball rolling.Financial Times, 6 March, p. 18.

Northern Foods (1988) The Most Useful Science: Chemi-cal and Biological Science in the Future's Food Indus-try. Norfolk: Thorburn Kirkpatrick.

Polanyi, M. (1958) Personal Knowledge: Towards aPost-critical Philosophy. London: Routledge andKegan Paul.

Rothschild, Lord (1971) The Organization and Manage-ment of Government R&D: A Framework for Govern-ment Research and Development. Cmnd. 4814.London: HMSO.

Schilling, M. D. (1988) Science, Technology or Scienceand Technology. In The Institute of Physics, Physicsand Technology: Interactions in Education, pp. 17-22.Bristol: Institute of Physics.

Secondary Science Curriculum Review (1989) Responseto the Interim Report of the National CurriculumDesign and Technology Working Group. SchoolTechnology, 22(2, 3), 13-17.

Senker, J. (1991) Evaluating the funding of strategicscience some lessons from British experience.Research Policy, 20(1), 29-43.

Smolimowski, H. (1966) The structure of thinking intechnology. Technology and Culture, 7, 371-83.

Staudenmaier, J. M. (1985) Technology's Storytellers:Reweaving the Human Fabric. Cambridge, M.A. andLondon: MIT Press and Society for the History ofTechnology.

Wigglesworth, V. B. (1955) The contribution of purescience to applied biology. Annals of Applied Bi-ology, 42, 34 14.

55

CHAPTER 6

Reworking the school sciencetechnologyrelationship

At an international conference on science, tech-nology and mathematics education in 1991, onescience educator dubbed technology as 'the newkid on the curriculum block', adding that weneeded to keep a careful watch on developmentsto see if the relationship with other subjects wouldevolve as 'bully or buddy', 'coloniser or collabora-tor'. Certainly, the inclusion of technology as acomponent of general education poses intriguingproblems of curriculum organisation and inter-relationships, to say nothing of content, pedagogyand assessment. In this chapter, some of theseissues will be explored from the particular perspec-tive of the relationship between science and tech-nology. (More general consideration of theteaching and learning of design and technology isprovided in other volumes in the series.)

Curriculum organisation

At least three broad approaches have been em-ployed for the incorporation of technology in thecurriculum of general education:

1 Technology as a distinct subject alongside otherschool subjects such as science and mathemat-ics.

2 Technology across the whole school curriculum,all subjects contributing, to the extent they areable, to the development of children's techno-logical capability.

3 Technology combined with science.

The justifications and implications of each of theseapproaches are reviewed below.

Technology as a separate subject

Theoretical arguments in support of this optioninvoke the nature of technological knowledge as aunique and irreducible cognitive mode. Theylikewise draw upon the integrative and holisticnature of design and technological activity inwhich purported stages such as identifying needsand opportunities or modelling cannot be keptuninfluenced by other 'stages' such as evaluating.It is also argued that in the past technology has toooften been misunderstood or misrepresented, e.g.treated as 'merely applied science' or constrainedby narrow vocational considerations. Only byallowing it to develop in its own curriculum space isit likely to fulfil its potential as a contributor togeneral education.

Of course, powerful practical considerations todo with staffing, accommodation, the timetableand other resources may also dispose a school toincorporate technology as a separate subject,whilst legislation and national arrangements forassessment of children's attainments, as inEngland and Wales, can clearly exert a majorinfluence.

Separateness does not equate with self-sufficiency,, however, and as we have seen inprevious chapters, science is not only an essentialresource for the development of technologicalcapability, but fulfils this role in multifarious ways.

56

58 TECHNOLOGY'S CHALLENGE TO SCIENCE EDUCATION

Careful negotiation of a mutually fruitful relation-ship between school technology and school scienceis, therefore, of critical importance. For scienceteachers, the essence of the problem is how toprovide a science education which assists childrento develop progressively a view of the naturalworld as scientists have constructed it, whilst at thesame time servicing the needs of children engagedin specific technological tasks. To build the ca-thedral and simultaneously man the companystore is a challenge which is both new anddaunting.

Fortunately, some at least of the components ofthe cathedral require little change. Facility in theuse of experimental methods and ability to drawupon a broad and general understanding of scien-tific phenomena are prime resources for techno-logical activities. There may be practical problemsof timing and co-ordination, the technologist re-quiring a knowledge of, say, enzyme chemistry orelectromagnetic induction before the scienceteacher has planned to deal with these topics.Self-learning packages and the use of educationaltechnology could be of some assistance here. Thepast history of service teaching (e.g. mathematicsfor science students), however, suggests that whenthe service subject is unable to make the necessaryadjustments, for whatever reasons, the attractionsof independence become irresistible and responsi-bility for the teaching is assumed by the otherpartner. One consequence here is that there maybe duplication of teaching effort with pupils ex-periencing different approaches to the study oftopics such as electronics and mechanics, accord-ing to whether they are in science or technologylessons.

Whether this should be a matter for concern isdebatable. Much turns on whether the differentapproaches are seen as betokening conflict or asproductive outcomes from a symbiotic relation-ship. In support of the latter view, our newunderstanding of the nature of technology and oftechnological knowledge does suggest that muchacademic science needs to be reworked to make itarticulate effectively with design parameters inspecific practical tasks. We lack experience atschool level of the kinds of transformations

needed, but some simple examples might help tosuggest what is often required (Layton, 1990).

1 Adjusting the level of abstractionA science teacher, aiming to develop an under-standing of the kineticmolecular theory ofheat, might deal with the conduction of heatthrough materials in terms of molecular motion.For the technologist, engaged in the task ofimproving the insulation of a building andreducing heat losses, a simple fluid flow model ofheat might be adequate for most work.

Similarly, a designer of lighting and electricalpower systems for a new building will be un-likely to work with a model of electric current asa charge cloud of electrons migrating over thenuclei of copper atoms.

Again, whilst a proton donor model is apowerful means of understanding the acidicproperties of materials, it is over-complex formost everyday situations involving acids. Gen-eralising, what is implied here is the need for thetechnology student, having reached an under-standing of science at a high level of ab-stractness, to be able to climb back down theladder of abstraction and judge where to stop,i.e. recognise which level is most appropriate fora specific technological purpose.

2 Repackaging knowledgeThe 'problems' which people construct fromtheir experiences do not map neatly on toexisting scientific disciplines and pedagogicalorganisations of knowledge. What is needed forsolving a technological problem may have to bedrawn from diverse areas of academic science atdifferent levels of abstraction and then syn-thesised into an effective instrumentality for thebasic task in hand. The student who designedand made a swimming aid for use by mentallyand physically handicapped children had tobring together knowledge of the properties ofvarious materials, concepts from physics such asdensity and principles such as that of Archi-medes, an understanding of the muscular,physiological and anatomical c!nracteristics ofusers, as well as the conditions for them to feelconfident and secure in water.

57

REWORKING THE SCHOOL SCIENCETECHNOLOGY RELATIONSIHP

3 Reconstruction of knowledgeThis involves creating or inventing new 'con-cepts' which are more appropriate than thescientific ones to the practical task being workedupon. The adoption of practical units, as op-posed to scientifically based ones, illustrateswhat is involved here. Examples have alreadybeen given in the previous chapter of instanceswhere technologists have found it necessary todevise concepts which are more effective thanacademic scientific ones in the specific circum-stances of their work.

4 ContextualisationScience frequently advances by the simpli-fication of complex real-life situations; its beamsin elementary physics are perfectly rigid; itslevers rarely bend; balls rolling down inclinedplanes are truly spherical and unhampered byair resistance and friction. Decontextualisation,the separation of general knowledge from par-ticular experience, is one of its most successfulstrategies. Solving technological problemsnecessitates building back into the situation allthe complications of 'real life', reversing theprocess of reductionism by recontextualisingknowledge. What results may be applicable in aparticular context or set of circumstances only.

The examples above do not exhaust the possi-bilities, but we might summarise the generalposition as follows. Much recent research onchildren's learning of science has been premised

Everydayknowledge

(Processofscienceeducation

CONSTRUCTION

59

on a view of learning as a process of knowledgeconstruction which starts from the prior know-ledge preconceptions, intuitions, alternativeframeworks that students bring to their lessons.Consideration of the relationship between scienceeducation and technology education suggests anadditional process is important (Fig. 6.1). Thisinvolves the deconstruction and reconstruction ofthe scientific knowledge acquired, in order toachieve its articulation with practical action intechnological tasks (Layton, 1991).

Technology across the curriculum

The rationale for this approach derives from a viewof technology as a complex human activity whichcannot adequately be practised and understood ifimmured within a limited timetable slot. Its re-sources and ramifications involve many com-ponents of the curriculum of general education.For example, consideration of whether a problemis appropriately tackled as a design and technologyactivity (e.g. fitting a lever arm on the kitchen tapof an elderly lady whose hands are crippled byarthritis; controlling the behaviour of disruptiveprisoners by chemical means) or as a socio-economic/political one (e.g. altering the ways inwhich a society treats its elderly infirm members orits criminal offenders) could be a valid concern ofsocial studies or history lessons. Similarly, unlessthe 'hidden curriculum' of a school its generalethos, reward systems, organisational practices,

Scientificknowledgeforunderstanding

OTHER KNOWLEDGEAND JUDGEMENTS

ProcessoftranslationOrreworking

DE-CONSTRUCTIONRE-CONSTRUCTION

Fig. 6.1 Construction and de4rc-construction of scientific knowledge.

58

Knowledgeforpracticalactioninspecificsituations

60 TECHNOLOGY'S CHALLENGE TO SCIENCE EDUCATION

resource distributions testifies to the high statusof practical knowledge, as well as academic learn-ing, then it is unlikely that the full potential oftechnology in the curriculum of general educationwill be realised. It is important to emphasise herethat the term 'practical' is not used in any sense asantithetical to 'intellectual'. From what has gonebefore in earlier chapters, it will be clear that thecapabilities which a technological education fos-ters involve intellectual abilities of a high order.

The implication here is that the inclusion oftechnology in the curriculum of general educationentails a change in the culture of schools. It is notthat the existing culture, with whatever emphasisthis might have on academic achievements andpastoral concerns, needs to be displaced. Rather,it requires enhancement by the celebration ofpractical capability as an extension of scholasticattainments into the wider world of purposefuldesign and action.

Implementation of 'technology across the cur-riculum', however, frequently leads to dismem-berment of the unitary concept of 'technologicalcapability' as embodied, for example, in the 1990Order for Technology in the National Curriculumof England and Wales. In this connection, it isinteresting to look at a significant report from anAssociation for Science Education Technologyand Science Working Party under the chairman-ship of Brian Woolnough (ASE, 1988). Thisasserted that technology should be 'an integralpart of every pupil's liberal education', its organis-ation being 'according to a whole school curricu-lum policy set in the context of a largely commoncurriculum'. Four distinct but interrelated strandsof technology education were identified as com-ponents of the formal curriculum, the whole to besupported by a school ethos which regularly en-

couraged technological activities. The four strandswere:

1 Technological literacy, defined as familiaritywith the content and methodologies of a rangeof technologies

2 Technological awareness, meaning awareness of'the personal, moral, social, ethical, economicand environmental implications' of technologi-cal developments.

3 Technological capability, meaning here theability to tackle a technological problem, 'bothindependently and in co-operation with others'.

4 Information technology, interpreted as pupils''competence and confidence in the technologi-cal handling of information'.

In primary schools, it was expected that all thestrands would be developed 'not through "sub-jects" but through integrated, interdisciplinary,investigational topic work'. In secondary schools,whilst a distinct subject, technology could be themeans by which technological literacy and techno-logical capability were fostered, technologicalawareness 'should be developed in the context ofmost subjects and areas of study; through history,geography and English as well as through thesciences'. Information technology, likewise,'should be taught as an integral part of differentsubjects' and it was judged that for technologicalcapability 'the most effective approach will necess-itate a more interdisciplinary structure'.

The ASE report made clear that the four strandswere not intended to represent a 'sequentialhierarchy' and that their ordering was not signifi-cant. In this respect, they differ from componentsof technology education in a transatlantic attemptto devise a taxonomy of capacity for technologicaldecision making (Todd, 1991: 271):

Levels Types of knowledge Competence

1 Technological awareness2 Technological literacy3 Technological capability4 Technological creativity5 Technological criticism

Knowledge thatKnowledge thatKnowledge that and howKnowledge that and howKnowledge that, how and why

UnderstandingComprehensionApplicationInventionJudgement

50

REWORKING THE SCHOOL SCIENCE-TECHNOLOGY RELATIONSHIP

Whilst this analysis of technological decisionmaking is suggestive, no empirical evidence insupport of the taxonomical claim is provided.Also, the scheme is not related directly to con-siderations of curriculum organisation or, specifi-cally, to the contributions of different schoolsubjects.

A third attempt to describe components oftechnology education uses the notion of functionalcompetencies (Layton, 1987: 4.5). It distinguishesbetween:

1 Technological awareness or receiver com-petence: the ability to recognise technology inuse and acknowledge its possibilities (e.g. recog-nise what a word processor might be able to dofor you in your workplace).

2 Technological application or user competence:the ability to use technology for specific pur-poses (e.g. use a word-processor to edit text).

3 Technological capability or maker competence:the ability to design and make.

4 Technological impact assessment or monitoringcompetence: the ability to assess the personaland social implications of a technological de-velopment.

5 Technological consciousness or paradigmaticcompetence: an acceptance of, and an ability towork within, a 'mental set' which defines what isa problem, circumscribes what counts as asolution and prescribes the criteria in terms ofwhich technological activity is to be evaluated.

6 Technological evaluation or critic competence:the ability to judge the worth of a technologicaldevelopment in the light of personal values andto step outside the 'mental set' to evaluate whatit is doing to us (e.g. it might be encouraging aview of social problems in terms of a successionof 'technological fixes' rather than more funda-mental considerations).

It is clear that several of the competencies could bedeveloped in different subjects of the curriculumof general education and that the later competen-cies clearly move the study of technology in thedirection of moral education.

A less ambitious and more practically focusedlisting of abilities was included in the Interim

61

Report of the Secretary of State's Working Groupon Design and Technology (DES, 1988: 17-18).

Design and technological capability was stated toinclude all of the following, at least:

pupils are able to use existing artefacts andsystems effectively;pupils are able to make critical appraisals of thepersonal, social, economic and environmentalimplications of artefacts and systems;pupils are able to improve, and extend the usesof, existing artefacts and systems;pupils are able to design, make and appraisenew artefacts and systems;pupils are able to diagnose and rectify faults inartefacts and systems.

Whilst the Terms of Reference of the WorkingGroup required the members to bring forwardproposals for the programmes of study and attain-ment targets of a subject called technology, theywere instructed to assume that pupils would drawon knowledge and skills from a range of subjectareas, 'but always involving science and math-ematics' (pp. 86-7).

These attempts to identify discernible strands orcomponents of technology education raise a ques-tion about their mutual independence. Clearly, itis possible to use a technological artefact (a motorcar, a refrigerator, a videotape recorder) effec-tively without necessarily being able to diagnoseand rectify faults in it. Depending on the com-ponent abilities identified, some degree of in-dependence seems possible. However, the issuearises in its sharpest form when consideringwhether it is possible to 'design and make' effec-tively without drawing upon knowledge and in-sights derived from the critical appraisal of thepersonal, social and other implications of techno-logical developments. In terms of the categories inthe ASE report, can technological capability bedeveloped independently of technological aware-ness, and vice-versa? The 1990 proposals fortechnology in the National Curriculum of Englandand Wales eschewed the notion of 'awareness' as aseparable component of technology education,regarding what was covered by this headingas integral to the development of design and

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62 TECHNOLOGY'S CHALLENGE TO SCIENCE EDUCATION

technological capability. A cross-curricular ap-proach to school technology which assumes thatcontributions to the development of pupils' tech-nological 'awareness' will come from several sub-jects is left with a major problem of co-ordinationand of re-uniting in pupils' minds and activities theconsiderations which interact in the practice oftechnology.

As for the role of science in a cross-curricularapproach to school technology, the ASE reportargued that:

1 Science teachers' expertise in electronics, com-puting, home economics, biotechnology andindustrial methods enables them to contributeto the development of pupils' technologicalliteracy.

2 In so far as science is taught in its social,economic and environmental contexts, con-sidering the applications and implications ofscience, pupils' technological awareness will beenhanced.

3 Similarities between 'the technological process'and 'science as a problem-solving activity' re-inforce aspects of technological capability.Also, scientific knowledge gained from sciencelessons is a vital resource for solving technologi-cal problems.

4 Familiarity by pupils with the use of computersin science lessons will build confidence in the useof information technology.

5 Science teachers can enhance the technologicalethos of a school by clubs, competitions, visits,industrial experience, displays and exhibitions.

Whilst this acknowledges the contribution of sci-ence as clearly significant. even allowing for differ-ences of opinion about similarities between theprocesses of scientific investigation and thoseinvolved in undertaking technological tasks, com-parable lists could be made for other schoolsubjects, such as geography and history, and theuniquely symbiotic character of the relationshipbetween science and technology is not affirmed.Perhaps even more importantly, it would seem asif school science could enter into a new relation-ship with school technology without itself under-going any significant change. The existing good

61

practices of school science are surveyed and drawnupon in support of technology education. It hasbeen a major contention of this book that thenegotiation of a relationship between school sci-ence and school technology is more complex thanthis. It constitutes a challenge to school sciencewhich entails an inescapable measure of change.

Technology combined with science

There are several versions of the case for incorpor-ating technology in the curriculum of generaleducation by combining it with science. It has beenargued, for example, that 'to put undue emphasison technology as a subject, to promote its defi-nition, is to stifle the wider role for scienceeducation' which has been 'gaining pace aroundthe world' (Holbrook, 1992: 8-9). This wider roleis associated with science curricula that are con-text-based, and that give prominence to appli-cations and implications. The contributions ofscience and technology to both the creation andsolution of social problems tend to feature stronglyand students engage in decision-making activities.

Reviewing the variety of such STS courses,Fensham (1988: 353-4) has distinguished between:

1 Science-determined courses in which the se-quence of the science knowledge is identical tothat in traditional disciplinary science edu-cation, with the STS material added on;

2 Technology-determined courses in which thescience content is determined by its relation tothe technology or the socio-technological issuebeing studied; and

3 Society-determined courses in which the scienceand technology to be studied are determined bytheir relevance to the particular societal prob-lem under consideration .

The concern is that the introduction of technologyas a separate subject in the curriculum, alongsidescience, would usurp crucial elements of thesecourses and debilitate the STS movement. Farbetter, the argument goes, to build on the intimaterelationship between science and technology, andconsolidate the goals of scientific understandingand design and technology capability in one com-bined course.

REWORKING THE SCHOOL SCIENCETECHNOLOGY RELATIONSHIP

A particular version of this general propositionconcerns the place of electronics in the schoolcurriculum. According to Lewis (1991: 1):

. . any approach which places too much emphasison the structure and characteristics of specific[electronic] devices suffers from two major draw-backs. The first is that these devices are likely to beof only transient importance (witness valves, orindeed transistors). Secondly, not enough time willbe left over to provide experience of designing andbuilding electronic systems to perform usefultasks. The latter is vital if students are to acquiresome appreciation and understanding of the powerof modern electronics, of its role in technology,and of its influence on human societies.

An alternative to the traditional device-centredapproach was pioneered by the Nuffield AdvancedPhysics project, which developed a systems ap-proach using conceptual building blocks (logicgates, bistables, astables, counters, etc.) whichhad some durability in the face of rapid develop-ments at the level of devices. The extension of thisapproach to earlier levels of physics teaching,enabling electronics to become an integral part ofphysics courses, would, in Lewis' judgement, 'donothing but strengthen physics as a school subject'.At the same time, it would present it in a waywhich more accurately reflected the activities ofmost of the world's physicists today.

Such moves by science educators to assimilatetechnology into science courses prompt questionsabout motives and the extent to which technologyis being cast in an instrumental role in order toenhance interest and attainment in science. Thereis nothing morally reprehensible about such tac-tics, provided children are not being sold short anddenied experience of modes of thought and actionthat are uniquely technological. As noted in Chap-ter 5, we so far !:-.ck well-tested examples ofcourses that successfully promote both scientificunderstanding and technological capability.

A quite different argument for combining tech-nology with science in general education is associ-ated with countries where demographic andeconomic considerations make the addition of anew subject to the curriculum impossible. InZimbabwe, for example, as in many African

62

63

countries, the population is expanding faster thanthe etonomy, secondary school enrolments haveincreased ten-fold since Independence in 1980,and there is an acute shortage of well-qualified andexperienced science teachers. Although thebenefits of technological capability have been wellrecognised (Carelse, 1988; Robson, 1989), humanand material resources are such that there is noprospect of developing a new technology curricu-lum for schools. Instead, a technology-orientedscience syllabus was adopted covering themes suchas Science in Agriculture, Science in Industry,Science in Structures and Mechanical Systems,Science in Energy Uses and Science in the Com-munity.

In a review of deliberations and papers from theWorld Conference on Education for All at Jom-tien in 1990, Knamiller (1992: 288-9) deploys asimilar argument:

. . . the major message to emerge is the need for'operacy', educating children and adults to operateeffectively in daily life, at the workplace and in thecommunity. . . This necessitates a process-oriented curriculum related to everyday life. . .

Technology education, reported to be virtuallyabsent from school curricula around the world, isalso process-oriented for the purpose of cultivatingproblem-solving, creative and entrepreneurialskills. As these new curricular thrusts are holistic,problem-solving, action-oriented and interdisci-plinary, they need not be forced as separate sub-jects into already overloaded curricula. Scienceand maths remain, but as lattices through whichprocesses are woven, e.g. forces and materials fordesigning machines, sums and spread sheets forengaging the market.

The image is appealing, though the feasibility ofusing science in this way for the development oftechnological capability (operacy) is questionable.Processes cannot be extracted from or woven intocontent and context quite so easily as seemsimplied. Moreover, there are practical obstacles,such as large class sizes (Knamiller cites ruralprimary school classes of 191 and 205 children inMalawi) and lack of materials, which militateagainst the learning of process skills for practicalaction.

64 TECHNOLOGY'S CHALLENGE TO SCIENCE EDUCATION

Even so, and particularly at the secondaryschool level, a number of developing countrieshave reconstructed their science syllabuses tomake them relate more effectively to contempor-ary personal and national needs. In Botswana, forexample, where water is always in short supply,where solar energy appliances are becoming in-creasingly common, where the bicycle is a stan-dard form of transport and where primary healthcare, especially in relation to intestinal infectiousdiseases, is of paramount importance, an inte-grated science programme for the two years ofjunior secondary school was devised. Each of thetopics mentioned in the previous sentence fea-tured as a unit of study with the BotswanaTechnology Centre, the Renewable Energy Tech-nology Project, the Department of Water Affairs,the Water Hygiene Project, the Mines Depart-ment and other national agencies serving in ad-visory capacities (Nganunu, 1988). Similarindigenous developments have occurred in thePhilippines (Tan, 1988) and Nigeria (Jegede, 1988;Ajeyalemi, 1990). A question remains, even so,about the extent to which such courses empowerstudents for practical action, however effectivelythey might illustrate the relevance of scientificprinciples to everyday life. Knowledge of therelationships is no guarantee of intent to act, muchless a substitute for the technological know-hownecessary to achieve a desired outcome in themade-world. As Hines and Hungerford (1984:127) have reported in the field of environmentaleducation, 'knowledge alone, while significantlycorrelated with responsible environmental action,is not sufficient to predispose individuals to at-tempt to remediate environmental problems'.Practical capability has crucial conative, no lessthan cognitive, components, and perhaps theconfidence to intervene and act can only comethrough repeated experiences of success frompersonal involvement in technological tasks.

Organisational futures

What follows from this brief review of approachesto the incorporation of technology in the curricu-

lum of general education? First, it is important notto formulate the problem as one of either/or: forexample, either separate subject technology ortechnology across the curriculum. To do so is tomisrepresent the challenge. We might adapt hereKarl Popper's (1972: 266) dictum that:

Whenever a theory appears to you as the onlypossible one, take this as a sign that you haveneither understood the theory nor the problemwhich it was intended to solve.

and say

Whenever a specific technology curriculum ap-pears to you as the only possible one, take this as asign that you have neither understood the natureof that curriculum nor the educational purpose itwas intended to achieve.

Indeed, a mixed economy may be a fruitful wayforward for many schools, with a curriculumsubject called technology and contributions from arange of other subjects, not least science, all withina school culture positively supportive of practicalcapability, as the ASE report suggested. Theseamless web view of technology suggests thatsuccessful learning will depend on a broad base ofdiverse experience which can only be provided bya whole curriculum in which the relevant activitiesare pervasive and integral. Technology educationis perhaps best seen as emblematic of that widerradical transformation of mission which schoolsare presently undergoing and to which referencewas made in Chapter 1.

Second, the situation in developing countriesprovides a salutary reminder of the power ofcontext in determining what is possible in organis-ational and other terms. The attempts to clonespecific models of technology education beingdeveloped in the (relatively) resource-rich Northare sensibly being resisted. Also, we should becareful not to write off alternative models from theSouth as necessarily inferior versions; as we havecome to realise in science education, the North hasoften much to learn from the South, not least in theareas of informal and non-formal education, ifonly it will allow its eyes to see.

Third, and perhaps most crucially, it will beimportant to avoid a situation in which science

63

REWORKING THE SCHOOL SCIENCE-TECHNOLOGY RELATIONSHIP

education and technology education confront eachother as competitors. It is perhaps understandablethat science education, which has been criticisedfor failing to capture the imaginations and energiesof many students, e.g. in the USA and the UK,should view the arrival of technology on thecurriculum scene as potentially threatening. Therehave even been suggestions that traditional disci-plinary science should be reserved for a minority,with technology becoming the staple of the ma-jority in mass educational systems (Chapman,1991). Opposition between school science andschool technology would be destructive to bothsubjects, as well as a negation of the symbioticrelationship that sustains them in industrial andother research and development contexts.

On the other hand, effective partnerships rarelyoccur spontaneously; there must be benefits in therelationship for each participant, and these willonly become clear after detailed and shared ex-ploration of each other's territory to determinehow best they might collaborate. It has been thepurpose of this book to contribute to this explor-ation which is presently taking place in manyschools and elsewhere, as in discussions betweensubject teaching associations such as the ASE andDATA. Many practical issues of finance, accom-modation, material resources and pedagogy willneed to be negotiated in establishing the relation-ship; for the most part, these have been judgedoutside the scope of the book, the prime focus ofwhich has been the nature of the two activities,science and technology. A complementary agendaof importance would address questions such aswliether the science to be used by students per-forming technology tasks should be provided on 'aneed to know' basis or should be 'front-endloaded', i.e. science taught formally, with perhapssome opportunities to use it in problems anddifferent contexts prior to embarking on thetechnology task. The debate about this particularissue has been well summarised by Cooper (1989).

It has also been the case that the emphasis inprevious chapters has been on the ways in whichscience education might serve the needs of tech-nology education, but it should be affirmed thatbenefits flow in the other direction also. Some

65

indication of these was provided in the sectionsabove describing the ways in which science edu-cation has moved in the direction of technologicalapplications, both as contexts for the understand-ing of scientific principles and as illustrations ofhow science relates to action in industry andeveryday life. A closer association of school sci-ence and school technology could bring otherbenefits to science also. The articulation of sciencewith practical action would help to project a moreauthentic view of the nature and creative foun-dations of scientific knowledge. It would en-courage recognition of both the tacit, craftcontributions to the generation of this knowledge(Ravetz, 1971) and the fact that, if it is to form thebasis of action, it 'often has to be reshaped,refashioned and contextualized in ways that allowits integration with other kinds of knowledge,beliefs and judgements that are often personal andmarkedly context bound' (Jenkins, 1992). Thisoutcome could be seen as a major contribution tothe humanising of a subject which many schoolstudents presently see as providing little room forpersonal interpretation and judgement. Revealingthe templates and techniques by means of whichthe cathedral was constructed, and perceiving it asitself a technological artefact, may also go someway to assisting it to function as the company store.

References

Ajeyalemi, D. (1990) Science and Technology Edu-cation in Africa. Focus on Seven Sub-Saharan Coun-tries. Lagos: University of Lagos Press.

Association for Science Education (1988) TechnologicalEducation and Science in Schools. Rcport of theScience and Technology Sub-Committee. Hatfield:ASE.

Care Ise, X. F. (1988) Technology education in relationto science education. In D. Layton (ed.), Innovationsin Science and Technology Education, Vol. 2,pp. 101-12. Paris: UNESCO.

Chapman, B. R. (1991) The overselling of scienceeducation in the eighties. School Science Review,72(260), 47-63.

Cooper, S. (1989) Technology across the curriculum andits impact on science teaching. Education in Science,135, November, pp. 10-11.

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66 TECHNOLOGY'S CHALLENGE TO SCIENCE EDUCATION

Department of Education and Science (1988) NationalCurriculum Design and Technology Working GroupInterim Report. London: DES and the Welsh Office,.

Fensham, P. J. (1988) Approaches to the teaching ofSTS in science education. International Journal ofScience Education, 10(4), 346-56.

Hines, J. M. and Hungerford, H. R. (1984) Environ-mental education: Research related to environmentalaction skills. In L. A. Iozzi (ed.), Summary ofResearch in Environmental Education 1971-82.Monographs in Environmental Education and En-vironmental Studies, Vol. 2. Columbus, Ohio: ERICClearing House for Science, Maths and Environ-mental Education.

Holbrook, J. (1992) Science and technology edu ..!tion -a vital link. Unpublished paper prepared for theICASE Seminar, Weimar International TechnologyEducation Conference, April.

Jegede, 0. J. (1988) The development of the science,technology and society curricula in Nigeria. Inter-national Journal of Science Education. 10(4),399-408.

Jenkins, E. W. (1992) Knowledge and action: Science astechnology? In R. McCormick, P. Murphy and M. E.Harrison (eds), Teaching and Learning Technology.Reading, M.A.: Addison-Wesley in association withthe Open University.

Knamiller, G. (1992) Review of Education for All:Purpose and Context. Roundtable Themes I . Paris,UNESCO, 1991. Science, Technology and Develop-ment, 10(2), 288-9.

Layton, D. (1987) Some curriculum implications oftechnological literacy. In Paper I : Papers submitted to

the Consultation held on 15 and 16 November 1985,pp. 4-8. York: St. William's Foundation TechnologyEducation Project, 5 College Street, York YOI 2JF.

Layton, D. (1990) Inarticulate Science? OccasionalPapers No. 17. Liverpool: University of LiverpoolDepartment of Education.

Layton, D. (1991) Science education and praxis: Therelationship of school science to practical action.Studies in Science Education, 19,43-79.

Lewis, J. (1991) Electronics Teacher's Guide. Scienceand Technology Education Document Series No. 40.Paris: UNESCO.

Nganunu, M. (1988) An attempt to write a sciencecurriculum with social relevance for Botswana.International Journal of Science Education, 10(4),441-8.

Popper, K. (1972) Objective Knowledge: An Evol-utionary Approach. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Ravetz, J. (1971) Scientific Knowledge and its SocialProblems. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Robson, M. (1989) Introducing technology throughscience education. Case Study 2: Zimbabwe. InWorld Bank/British Council, Educating for Capa-bility: The Role of Science and Technology Education,Vol. 2. London: The British Council.

Tan, M. C. (1988) Towards relevance in science edu-cation: Philippine context. International Journal ofScience Education, 10(4), 431-40.

Todd, R. (1991) The changing face of technologyeducation in the United States. In J. S. Smith (ed.),DATER 91 , pp. 261-75. Loughborough: Departmentof Design and Technology, Loughborough Universityof Technology.

CHAPTER 7

Responses and resources: a review of the field

In this final chapter some responses by those inschools to the problem of negotiating a mutuallysupportive relationship between technology andscience will be reviewed. A number of projectsworking at the interface of technology and sciencehave produced curriculum materials and otherwisesupported developments in this area. Whilst thechapter draws heavily on these helpful materialsand permission to do so is gratefully acknow-ledged, the examples discussed make no pretenceof comprehensive coverage and, in any case, thefield is far from static.

An example from school X

School X, a secondary school with a strong com-mitment to the development of technology edu-cation, organised a 'great egg race' as acompetition involving ten other similar schools.Each school entered a team of four students,usually two boys and two girls, drawn from years 8to 10 (i.e. 13-15 year olds, with most students fromthe upper years). None of the students had pre-vious knowledge of the task they would be asked toundertake, although all had demonstrated a keeninterest in design and technology activities in theirown schools.

The competition was sited in a hall with bal-conies on the first floor. Two parallel copper wireshad been stretched from one side of the hall to theother, the ends being secured at the top of therailings on the balcony. On the ground floor, in the

centre of the hall and directly under the mid-pointof the parallel wires, a metal waste paper basketwas situated. Teams were to construct a devicewhich would transport a raw egg and deposit it inthe waste paper basket without breaking the shell.The teams had to make their attempt from aposition on the balcony at one end of the parallelcopper wires and were not permitted to move fromthat position while trying to place the egg on thetarget. The egg was the only object to be left on thetarget area.

A list of materials and components was providedfor the teams (see Table 7.1). All items on the listwere priced; for certain items there was a limit onthe number which a team could purchase. Anotional budget of £.1000 was available to eachteam and no materials other than those provided,or bought from the stores, could be used. Thedevice constructed to transport the egg had toweigh no more than 1 kilogram and the attempt toplace the egg on the target had to be completed inless than 5 minutes from the moment of launchfrom the balcony.

A data sheet offered suggestions to team mem-bers for methods of quick construction of a light-weight wooden frame to which axles and wheelscould be attached, but competitors were free todevelop other means of transporting the egg, ifthey so wished. The materials and componentsavailable for purchase placed some limits on therange of solutions which could be explored. Forexample, it would not have been possible to build acantilever device from which to lower the egg; nor

66

68 TECHNOLOGY'S CHALLENGE TO SCIENCE EDUCATION

were extendible tongs a possibility because ma-terials from which to construct them were notavailable. Three hours of working time wereallowed to the teams for designing, constructingand testing, as well as for producing a set ofdrawings to show their ideas, the development ofthe design and the final solution adopted.

In the event, every team chose to construct someform of four (or six) wheeled buggy supporting apulley over which string passed, one end beingunder the control of a team member and the otherend being attached to a device to carry and depositthe egg. The wheels were positioned on the copperwires, relying on an indentation in their circumfer-ences to hold them in place. The transporter waspropelled by an electric motor with, in all but onecase, direct drive to the wheels by means of arubber band. The plan was to transport the buggyto the mid-point of the wires, then lower the egginto the waste paper basket and operate therelease mechanism.

Despite much ingenuity in the design and con-struction of egg holders and dropping mechan-isms, only one team succeeded in depositing theegg unbroken on target. Indeed, this was the onlyattempt out of those made by the eleven teamswhich landed an egg anywhere near the targetarea.

In talking to competitors about the way in whichthey were going about the task a number ofinteresting points emerged. Asked whether theyhad found science helpful in assessing what wasneeded to accomplish the task, or in analysingreasons for failure in trials, the universal responsewas negative. The problem had been conceptual-ised in terms which did not go beyond a commonsense appreciation of it and an intuitive feel forwhat might work. In the discussions amongststudents in their teams, when debating how best totackle the problem, there was little reference toscientific principles or ideas. When the motorfailed to propel the vehicle along the copper wires(and few vehicles got as far as a metre beyond thestarting point, even with manual encouragement),there was no attempt to analyse the forces at work,only a contcntion that a 'larger motor' might beneeded. The winning team was the only one to

Table 7.1 Items for purchase by competitors

Items Price (E) Maximumallowed

Large motorsSmall motorsPlastic discsStrawsMicro switchesPush button switchesSpringsNuts and boltsString (thin)String (nylon)Stiff wireWireDouble sided tapeMasking tape4 mm dowelCotton reelsRubber bandsWelding rodWheels10 mm sq woodGearsPulleys

50d200

1010

2010

10

10

5/m2/m

10/in10/in10/m5/m

20/length5

2 each20/length10 each10/length5

5

1

2

2

incorporate a gear box between the electric motorand the wheels. Two teams did weigh the eggbefore designing their vehicle and dropping mech-anism, but in general quantitative considerationswere not prominent in the thinking of the competi-tors.

There are many criticisms that can be made of'egg-race' type of activities; for example, competi-tors are faced with someone else's problem, notone they themselves have defined and over whichthey have some sense of ownership; the task isoften artificial and contrived, lacking a clearconnection with everyday concerns; and the rangeof solutions is limited, even partially prescribed,by whatever resources are made available. Leav-ing these considerations aside, however, there aresome important lessons to be learnt from theparticular activity just described.

The prospect of success would have been en-

67

RESPONSES AND RESOURCES: A REVIEW OF THE FIELD

hanccd if competitors, prior to settling on a design,had attempted to model the physical forces actingon the vehicle when mounted on the copper wiresand carrying the suspended egg. Estimates of themagnitudes, directions and effects of these forcescould have brought home to competitors, forexample, the need for a low centre of gravity of thevehicle in order to reduce the risk of slipping offthe wires, a common cause of disaster. Similarly,some rough quantitative estimate of the motivepower to ensure forward progression in a con-trolled manner would have guided competitor inthe choice of electric motor and the most appropri-ate mode of driving the wheels of the vehicle.Preliminary trials of the unloaded vehicle oftenindicated a lack of friction between the wheels andthe wires; some knowledge of science could havehelped to solve this problem. Possibly time con-straints and the competitive atmosphere inducedthe students to adopt 'cut and try' intuitive strat-egies; certainly, there was little evidence ofsystematic experimental investigation in the de-velopment of their vehicles and the droppingmechanisms.

In Chapter 5, some ways in which science couldserve as a resource for the development of techno-logical capability were reviewed. One funda-mental contribution of science was as a source ofoperational principles for technological develop-ments. In this example of a 'great egg race',variations on the egg depositing mechanism werecommon, although few were consciously derivedfrom scientific principles. There were, for ex-ample, no pneumatic devices. Most were simplemechanical solutions involving tipping or rolling ofthe egg after the container had landed on the baseof the target. In actuality, few were ever put to theultimate test because their transporting vehiclesfailed to travel sufficiently far along the wires.

As for the transporters themselves, there wereno alternatives to the vehicle on wheels travellingon top of the wires and powered by a small electricmotor. The wires from the motor to the powersource on the floor of the balcony, of necessitysome 4 metres in length. tended to become en-tangled with the longer length of string runningover the pulley to the egg-dropping mechanism.

69

No team explored, either on paper or in practice,the feasibility of an under-slung transporter, thedesign of which might have enabled a greaterspatial separation of the motor and the droppingmechanism, so reducing the risk of snarl-ups. Theextent to which available materials and com-ponents constrained operational principles isexemplified by the absence, even in the sketches ofstudents, of consideration of alternative energysources such as steam, compressed air or elasticbands. Similarly, competitors remained in thrallthroughout to the parallel copper wires. No onecontemplated, even to reject the idea, aerialpassage from the balcony to the target by, forexample, a large helium filled balloon. Likewise,subversive measures, such as slackening a copperwirc to yield a catenary with its lowest point justabove the target (not prohibited or at least notreferred to in the printed rules of the com-petition), remained unexplored.

The purpose of this brief evaluation of one 'eggrace' is not to criticise the students or theirteachers. Many of the latter, if askehd to relate thetask to work in science lessons, would no doubtprovide more and richer examples than thoseabove. The central point is that the way in whichstudents had been experiencing technology in theirschools, all of which aspired to some excellence inthis field, did not appear to have disposed them toreflect, as a matter of habit and because experiencehad testified to the benefits, on the ways in whichscientific knowledge and skills might enhance theirdesigning and making.

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Science as a source of operational principles

The Science and Technology in Society (SATIS)16-19 project of the Association for Science Edu-cation was set up in 1987 to provide teachingresources for students in the 16-19 age range. Itbuilt on the experience of an earlier SATIS projectfor 14-16 year olds and was intended to supportgeneral education and to enhance specialist sci-ence courses in academic and vocational pro-grammes. Although not written specifically fortechnology students, some of the units have a

TECHNOLOGY'S CHALLENGE TO SCIENCE EDUCATION

design and technology orientation, although theydo not always involve construction. There is anassociated reader entitled What is Technology?

Unit 2 of the 16-19 project is described as an`icebreaker'; its focus is the apparently simple taskof emptying a bucket of water and it is usuallyundertaken as a group activity. Confronted by aplastic bucket full of water, students are invited toconsider ways of emptying it. Suggestions mayinclude:

tipping the bucket over;making a hole in the bucket;drop bricks or other large insoluble objects intothe bucket to displace the water;pour in an immiscible liquid which is more densethan water;hang a hook in the water, freeze the water andthen lift out the water as a solid lump of ice;ladle out the water with a utensil such as a cup orsaucepan;drop in a chemical, such as sodium, which reactswith the water violently and decomposes it;drink the water;use a length of pipe to siphon off the water;use a pump;use a sponge repeatedly, putting it in the waterand then squeezing it out;use two electrodes and a battery to electrolysethe water, decomposing it into gaseous prod-ucts.

Embodied in these suggestions are numerousphysical and chemical principles. Thus, withoutsome knowledge of change of state it would not bepossible to design a solution to the problem whichinvolved freezing. Similarly, unless students knewsomething of the process of electrolysis of water,the operational principle of decomposing thewater into hydrogen and oxygen would not beavailable to them. While the list includes somesuggestions of dubious validity, it by no meansexhausts the possibilities; for example, biologicalapproaches to the task are not well represented.

Having elicited a range of possible ways oftackling the problem, the unit then suggests thatsome practical constraints are introduced such as:

the bucket cannot be touched or damaged;health and safety considerations, i.e. themethod adopted must not be hazardous orinjurious;cost; the method used must not be prohibitivelyexpensive;time; a time limit for completion of the task canbe imposed.

In the light of these, the suggested methods arereviewed and some are eliminated. Although theunit does not require students to use the oper-ational principle they favour in the actual design,construction and testing of a device to empty thebucket, some practical work is incorporated. Den-sity measurements of various liquids, and offoams, might be made in order to select anappropriate substance if that route is being fol-lowed. Optimum conditions, including surfacearea, air-flow rate and temperature, for the evap-oration of the water might be investigated. Theunit also suggests investigations into the workingof a lavatory cistern, as a widely used mechanismfor emptying a container of water in a controlledway. It would seem possible to use an adaptedversion of the unit with students younger than16-19 in order to illustrate how science can be arich source of operational principles for the sol-ution of technological problems. Selection of anoperational principle is, of course, only a first stepin the technological task and its translation into aneffective technological device will raise design andconstructional problems which may even entailreconsideration of the principle chosen.

Making use of science and technology(MUST)

Both examples so far considered the egg race andthe bucket of water to be emptied whilst illustra-tive of certain aspects of the relationship betweenschool science and school technology, do notrelate directly to real-life situation, In contrast,the MUST project, located at the emical Indus-try Education Centre, York University, has pro-duced units of work for use with 13-16 year olds,

6S

RESPONSES AND RESOURCES: A REVIEW OF THE FIELD

Dyed outerlayer

The inne, layerof cottonremains whIte col

Fig. 7.1 Cotton thread dyed with indigo.

all of which are based on some situation orproblem in an industrial context.

One typical unit, with an obvious and directappeal to young people, is entitled 'WearingJeans'. Its subject is the method of producingdenim, from which jeans are made, which has thefaded appearance so fashionable in recent years.

Denim is a woven cotton fabric. For the manu-facture of blue jeans, threads which have beendyed with synthetic indigo are used for the warp,whilst undyed cotton threads are used for the weft.Chemically, cotton is almost pure cellulose, amaterial made up of long parallel chains of glucosemolecules. In the process of dyeing, particles ofindigo become physically trapped between thechains in the fibres on the outside of the cottonthread. The indigo is not chemically bonded to thecotton and does not penetrate below the outerlayer of a thread (Fig. 7.1). With wear andwashing, over an extended period, the indigo dyeis released from the surface of the threads and thedenim assumes the faded look that has been sopopular with young people.

In order to achieve this effect in newly manufac-tured jeans, the traditional method was to stone-wash , i.e. abrade the surface of the dyed cottonthreads by tumbling the jeans with pieces ofpumice stone in a large washing machine (Fig.

71

A closer look et theouter layer

go: Indigo; indigo ndigol

7

Perhcles of indigo dye are trappedbetween the cellulope ChaIns

7.2). There are many disadvantages with thisprocedure. Pumice stones are costly to import andhandle. Their abrasive action on the jeans candamage seams and hems, as well as the washingmachine. Dust from the stones makes it necessaryto introduce an extra wash for the denim, soincreasing production time and costs; the dustcannot be disposed of by normal drainage and hasto be transported by road to waste disposal sites,again putting up costs. Even after the extra wash,tiny fragments of pumice can remain in the jeansand could be dangerous to young children ifingested; time and labour are needed to removethis rnaterial.

Having provided an interesting account of thestone-washing process and its limitations, the unitnow reveals an alternative means of fading thedenim which depends on a chemical knowledge ofcellulose. The new operational principle derivesfrom the fact that the enzyme cellulase, producedby micro-organisms, is able to break down cellu-lose. If treated with cellulase under appropriateconditions, blue denim will fade because thecellulose chains on the outside of the cotton fibreare split up into simple sugar molecules and thetrapped indigo particles are released. A scientificunderstanding of the effect of dyeing denim withsynthetic indigo and a knowledge of the chemistry

72

Abrasion at theouter surface

TECHNOLOGY'S CHALLENGE TO SCIENCE EDUCATION

Abrasion at theinner surface -II'

Short wash

Fig. 7.2 'Fading' by abrasion.

of cellulose thus yields the means of producingfaded jeans of improved quality, with reducedpollution and risks to children and, hopefully,lower manufacturing costs.

Other aspects of the process are covered by theunit, such as the removal of the starch size appliedto cotton fibres to reinforce them, so reducing therisk of breakages due to mechanical strain inmanufacture of the denim fabric. Enzyme chemis-try is again involved.

From the standpoint of developing technologi-cal capability, the unit stops short of requiringstudents to design and make anything, althoughdetails are provided for the construction fromplastic bottles of a mode: washing machine todemonstrate the enzyme-fading process. How-ever, the recommended practical activities arelargely concerned with establishing the conditionsfor the most effective treatment of the denim bycellulase (e.g. optimum reaction temperature,minimum period of treatment), for working safelyand for reinforcing students' knowledge of chemis-try (e.g. the specificity of enzymes, the structure ofcellulose) and of the fruitful interaction of scienceand technology.

All this is important and valuable and, as withother units of the MUST project, science andtechnology are situated in contexts which are likelyto interest many students. In terms of technologythe seamless web, as portrayed in Chapter 3, andthe intimate relationship between technologypractice and values, as argued in Chapter 4, theunit presents a partial story only and leaves scopefor further development if technological capabilityis the goal. On the specific issue of the relation-

or Long wash

ships of science and technology, the science in-volved is brought to bear upon the technologicalproblem without significant change in its char-acter. There is little hint of the kinds of transform-ations discussed in Chapter 5 which assist itsarticulation with design parameterc llthough theunit provides an excellent illustration of science asa resource for new operational principles.

The Science with Technology Project

Of projects in the UK perhaps that which mostdirectly confronts the relationship between scienceand technology in schools is a joint venture of theAssociation for Science Education and the Designand Technology Association. The Science withTechnology Project is aimed at students in the14-19 years age range and the curriculum ma-terials it produces are intended to become part ofthe ASE SATIS publications.

The project literature spells out the mutualbenefits of collaboration between science andtechnology. For technology, there is the recog-nition and illustration that science provides know-ledge and skills needed by students, alongsideother resources, to develop technological capa-bility. The project aims to provide materials whichenable students to acquire scientific skills andknowledge in a way that makcs them useful indesign and make tasks. Also authentic andauthoritative information from industry is used toprovide contexts for these tasks. For science, thereare resources which sct scientific activities in

71

RESPONSES AND RESOURCES: A REVIEW OF THE FIELD

context, develop investigative skills and build onthe motivation that results from involvement indesign and technology activities through relatingthe science to the process of designing and makingin response to human need.

The project has identified three levels of supportfrom and collaboration with science. There is,first, what it calls essential science, knowledge andskills which are so firmly embedded in the techno-logical task that a successful outcome is impossiblewithout them. In the MUST project on WearingJeans, a knowledge of the chemistry of celluloseand of the action of the enzyme cellulase could beregarded as essential science. Second, there isuseful science, in the sense that this science facili-tates the achievement of the technological goal.The ability to design an experimentai investigationto determine the optimum temperature for thereaction between cellulase and cellulose would bean example of useful science. Finally, the projectidentifies opportunities to develop further work inscience which builds on the relevance of the

TECHNOLOGYTASKS

Eriv:ro

73

technological task and the motivation resultingfrom it. This work would be undertaken within thescience programme of study as a positive spin-offfrom the technology activity. The MUST project,for example, includes experimental work as exten-sion studies designed to reinforce students' ap-preciation of the highly specific nature of enzymeactivity and the fact that cellulase has no action onthe polyester threads used to sew up the jeans.

The resources developed by the Science withTechnology Project are based on the model shownin Fig. 7.3. A common context is used to set tasksin both technology and science. Even so, thesuccess of a partnership between technology andscience clearly requires collaboration betweendepartments and colleagues in a school in order toovercome a number of severe practical problems.First, there is no single mandatory body of scien-tific knowledge for design and technology activi-ties. Especially if pupils are themselves identifyingproblems or are being faced by open-ended tasks,it is difficult to see how it is possible to front-end

CONTEXTS

Industrial

enta, Community

le:sure etc

Inck,de attractive rolemuuels for students

Arising from thecontext Differentiated ideas

tor holistic tasks

Students given guidancito enable them toi.x(ilore the context

Presented throughinformative, accurate,interesting, wellpresentedcase study material

RESOURCEACTIVITIES

Set in the context

Include theessential and usefulscience (andmathematics)activities andopportunities todevelop furtheractivities

To give studentsthe resources of theskills, knowledgeand understandingthey need tobe successfulin the task

Focusedactivit;es

Fig. 7.3 Thc model used by the Science with Technology Project to develop resources.

WM Ma IF72

74 TECHNOLOGY'S CHALLENGE TO SCIENCE EDUCATION

load with scientific knowledge, pre-judging thescience they are likely to need; without at the sametime influencing the definition of the problem andencouraging closure on the type of solution to beadopted. If pupils are working on the reduction ofaccidents from reversing lorries, and this activity isprefaced by lessons on optics, it will not besurprising if optical solutions predominate,although solutions depending on other branches ofscience are clearly possible.

A second difficulty is that the need may arise inscience and technology activities for scientificknowledge well before it is encountered in sciencelessons. As the report of an evaluation of the pilotphase of the Technological Baccalaureate com-mented, technology 'makes promiscuous use of[scientific knowledge], with no regard for theconvenience of those concerned with designingcoherence and progression into a programme ofstudy for science' (Young and Barnett, 1992: 18).In other words, the external requirements of thesubject being serviced may not correspond to theinternal requirements of the discipline providingthe service.

Third, and more fundamentally, even if scienceis accessible to students at the times in their designand technology activities when they need it, as wehave seen not all scientific knowledge as providedin science lessons is in a form which makes its use intechnological activities a straightforward matter.In the chemistry programme nutrients may beclassified and studied as carbohydrates, proteinsand fats, together with micronutrients such asvitamins and mineral sources of elements such asiron and iodine. The biology programme may dealwith issues such as digestion, absorption andexcretion. For the chef, designing and cooking adinner, whilst the contribution from science wouldbe a consideration, design parameters of a differ-ent kind would be paramount. Foods would oecategorized according to how long they tak e tocook; whether to be served hot or cold; flavour;consistency; colour; need for preservatives, thick-eners and texturisers etc. A different vocabularyand a different frame of reference would be calledinto play. The translation and integration of scien-tific knowledge about nutrients into culinary and

dietary practice exemplifies the third practicaldifficulty of establishing a mutually fruitful re-lationship between school science and school tech-nology.

The extent of collaboration between teachers ofscience and of technology is seen by the Sciencewith Technology Project as possible at a number ofdifferent levels. In some situations it may befeasible and desirable to aim for fully integratedwork in a course, a project or a task. In othercontexts, collaborative work may involve theorganisation of a coherent programme of study forstudents, the separate subjects retaining theiridentity and autonomy, with work being passedfrom one teacher and lesson to the next in order toprovide coherence and continuity. Differentagain, the project identifies co-ordinated work,possibly with a common context for the differentactivities in the different subjects. Whilst this doesnot entail an overall coherent programme of studyfor students, they are encouraged to make connec-tions between lessons or topics. Fourth, collabor-ation may be pitched at the level of awareness ofwhat is going on in other subjects so that cross-references can be made and links indicated tostudents. Clearly, some combination of theselevels of collaboration may also prove workable.

Ways forward

It is clear that there are no simple and generalsolutions to the problems confronting those whoattempt to establish a productive relationshipbetween school science and school technology.Certainly in the early stages, schools will need towork out their own way forward in the light of theirparticular circumstances the geography of de-partments and resources, the history of inter-faculty collaboration in the school, the nature ofpersonalities involved and the quality of infra-structural support, to mention only a few of thedeterminants. Whilst some degree of collabor-ation between science teachers and technologyteachers is important, it is essential to be clearabout the goals of the collaboration.

73

RESPONSES AND RESOURCES: A REVIEW OF THE FIELD

An understandable and defensible first movewould be to look down the list of scientificknowledge and skills in the school's science sylla-buses in order to identify those elements whichseem to relate most directly to technologicalactivities which might be undertaken. The pro-posals for the revision of attainment targets andprogrammes of study for design and technology inthe National Curriculum (Secretary of State forEducation and the Secretary of State for Wales,1992) now include numerous cross-references tothe Statutory Order for Science and, in one of thefew journal articles on using science in design andtechnology, Dr David Bar lex, a director of theNuffield Design and Technology Initiative, hasargued that a first place for technology teachers tolook should be the Statutory Order for Science inthe Naiional Curriculum (Bar lex, 1991: 149),preferably with science colleagues who can help inthe matching of the level of statements of attain-ment to pupils' ability.

Barlex recommends that this exploration of thescience curriculum should then be coupled with arevisitation of some familiar design and tech-nology tasks. He uses the example of designing anut cracker to show how an approach from thestandpoint of the 'force' or 'energy' required tocrack a particular kind of nut can lead to a physicalmodelling of the task and contribute to a technicalspecification tor the device. Of course, this is onlyan initial step in the process. It is followed byinvestigation of ways of applying the requiredforce (e.g. levers, screw thread) and of deliveringthe necessary energy (e.g. falling weights, ballisticpendulum, compressed spring). In the light of theresults, an operational principle for the nutcracking device is chosen and design consider-ations relating to ease of use, pleasing appearance,selection of materials with appropriate be-havioural characteristics and manufacturabilityarc called into play. At all stages, decisions can beinformed by scientific knowledge and skills, theextent of this being related to the age and experi-ence of students.

One lesson to be drawn from this example hasbeen well expressed by Professor M..1. French in afascinating book , Invention and Evolution. Design

74

75

in Nature and Engineering (1988: 300). He writesthat

The mind of the designer should be like a rich,open soil, full of accessible resources, of which thechief is an ordered stock of ways and means,illustrated by many examples . . . [This 'designrepertoirel should be organised on the most ab-stract lines practicable, so that any item in it islikely to be recalled in as many contexts as possible.

Others who have studied invention as a cog-nitive process endorse this view. Detailed recon-structions of the ways in which significant andsuccessful inventors have achieved their goalsshow that not only do they build up and draw upona personal 'design repertoire', but within this theyhave favoured means of achieving particular tech-nological ends. These serve as a hallmark of theircapability and a testament in their products to theidentity of the designer (Carlson and Gorman,1990; Gorman and Carlson, 1990).

One important goal of collaboration betweenteachers of science and technology, then, is theidentification of the science which might assist notonly the achievement of effective outcomes, butalso the build-up of a repertoire of design andconstructional resources, illustrated in multiplecontexts. This has implications for the choice andcontrol of the tasks on which students will work. Abalance will need to be struck between prescriptivetasks, intended as opportunities to make use ofparticular taught scientific knowledge and skills,and more open-ended tasks which encouragelateral thinking and imaginative raids upon astudent's expanding repertoire of technological'ways and means'. The Nuffield Design and Tech-nology Project makes a similar distinction betweenthe kinds of tasks on which students will need towork. Resource tasks are ones which are designedto help pupils acquire the knowledge, understand-ing and skills necessary for capability in design andtechnology. Capability tasks are designed to pro-vide pupils with opportunities to develop anddemonstrate capability in design and technology.In the words of a project newsletter:

Capability tasks without thc underlying foundationprovided by resource tasks will reduce pupils to

76 TECHNOLOGY'S CHALLENGE TO SCIENCE EDUCATION

operating on little more than heightened commonsense. Resource tasks do not teach pupils to becapable. Good design and technology teaching willbe based on the interplay of these two sorts of task.By choosing a sequence of capability tasks withassociated resource tasks, teachers will be able todevelop a design and technology curriculum that isright for the pupils in their school.

(Nuffield Design and Technology InitiativeNewsletter 2, 1992)

The approach to collaboration between teachersof science and those of design and technology byidentifying scientific knowledge and skills in thescience programme which might be useful todesign and technology students whilst clearly valu-able, nevertheless leaves important problems un-addressed. Some of these are practical andorganisational, such as how to plan the teaching toachieve maximum synergy. Solutions here areprobably particular and context specific. Others,and notably the effective articulation of scientificconcepts with design parameters (as discussed inChapters 5 and 6), appear not to have beenacknowledged, much less explored, in the projectsand materials currently available. The judgementfrom this brief ieview of the field, admittedlylimited to some UK resources only, must be thatwhilst the attempt to bring school F:ience andschool technology into a fruitful relationship hasbeen started, and progress made, the analysis ofthe problem has so far not been taken far enough.'Applying science' is not a simple matter ofselection followed by routine use; the process is anactive one which often entails the creative re-working of the science. As W.J.M. Rankine,Regius Professor of Civil Engineering and Mech-anics at Glasgow in the nineteenth century and adistinguished pioneer of the use of science intechnological tasks, expressed it, 'the applicationof these [scientific] principles to practice is an art initself' (Rankine, 1857: 13).

Appendix: ASE policy statement ontechnology

I Introduction

The Associaiion for Science Education believes

that Science and Technology are inextricablyinterwoven. For this reason, it is important todevelop the relationship between the two, but notto deny the distinctive features or the separateidentity of either. Science, like art, home econ-omics, history and other subject areas, can make acontribution to the technological education of allpupils. In primary schools, the development oflearning is encouraged by a thematic approach,which should automatically link science and tech-nology with each other and with other subjectareas. In secondary schools, technological edu-cation should be developed by supporting as manyaspects of technology as possible. This might beachieved by the sequencing of science curricul,imtopics to match the needs of technology, bycross-curricular activities or by the presence of ascience teacher on the technology teaching team.

2 The rationale for technological education

Technological education should form an integralcomponent of the educational experience of :illyoung people aged 5 to 19 years. As a consequenceof this experience and that obtained in othersubject areas, students will be better prepared todevelop an awareness and an appreciation of theworld and its cultures and the influence of past,present and future technological change.

Initially, young pupils should be encouraged,and helped to identify tasks in familiar contexts,which they are able to complete by drawing upontheir present knowledge, understanding, experi-ence and skills. In doing this, and in followingother tasks sensitively introduced by the teacher,students will develop and extend their technolog-ical capability until they become self-sufficient,independent of the teacher and able to identify'needs and opportunities'. In time, they shouldhave sufficient confidence to generate, evaluateand present their own designs and acquire higherorder skills in order to fulfil a particular task. As aconsequence of this progressive development intheir technological activities and abilities, youngpeople will be enabled to play an active part in thecontrol of their own environment and encouragedto participate in its positive development for those

75

RESPONSES AND RESOURCES: A REVIEW OF THE FIELD

less fortunate than themselves. The developmentof technological literacy and capability will alsoprovide many young people with relevant andappropriate preparation for adult life and employ-ment.

3 Entitlement

All pupils should receive a broad, balanced,progressive and appropriately co-ordinatedtechnological education from 5 to 16 years ofage. This technological education should con-tinue post-16, but some specialisation is to beexpected at this stage of education.Technological education should enable pupilsto develop their technological ability throughopportunities to take part in activities of anextended nature which take advantage of know-ledge, understanding and skills from many areasof the curriculum.Information Technology is one aspect of Tech-nology which should be an integral part of thelearning experience of all pupils, at all stages,and in many areas of the curriculum.

Some projects concerned with therelationship between science and technology

Making use of Science and Technology

Project Officer: Terry Hilton, Chemical IndustryEducation Centre, Department of Chemistry.University of York, Heslington, York YO1 5DD.Telephone: 0904 432523.

Units include: Wearing Jeans; Fit to Drink;Frozen Assets; Captains of Industry; Hydrogen asan Energy Carrier; Recycling Cities; War againstPests; Sweet Success; What a Gas?; Magnox.

The materials are intended for use with 13-16year olds. The activities are based on the practicesand processes of industry.

Science and Technology in Society

The SATIS projects are initiatives of the Associ-ation for Science Education, College Lane, Hat-

77

field, Hertfordshire ALIO 9AA. Telephone: 0707267411.

SATIS 14-16, the original project, includes 120units. SATIS 16-19, for older students, comprisesa flexible bank of resources designed to supportgeneral education and to enrich specialist sciencecourses. A total of 100 units is supported by threereaders entitled What is Science?, What is Tech-nology? and How does Society Decide? SATIS8-14, the most recent SATIS initiative, providesactivities for upper primary and lower secondaryschool pupils.

Science with Technology Project

Project Director: Jim Sage, 23 Westfield Park,Redland, Bristol BS6 6LT. Telephone: 0272238943.

The project is a joint initiative of the Associationfor Science Education and the Design and Tech-nology Association. Its aim is to develop therelationship between science and technology forstudents aged 14-19. The curriculum materialsproduced will become part of the ASE SATISpublications.

Technology Enhancement Programme

National Co-ordinator: John Holman; ModuleTeam Leader: Jim Sage; details from ProgrammeManager: Sue Kearney, 20 Canon Street,Taunton, Somerset TM 1SW. Telephone: 0823323363.

The programme aims to enhance the delivery oftechnology, mathematics and science to studentsin the 14-19 age range. The modules produced areintended to support a range of routes to accredit-ation including GCSE, BTEC, City and Guilds,A/AS level and GNVQ. Amongst key principles ofthe programme are: that mathematics and scienceactivities must be embedded into all TEP modules;and the modules are to be developed by teams ofteachers of mathematics, science and technologyworking with advisers from industry.

76

78 TECHNOLOGY'S CHALLENGE TO SCIENCE EDUCATION

The programme is funded by the Gatsby Chari-table Foundation and managed by the EngineeringCouncil. It has close links with the Science andTechnology Project.

Nuffield Design and Technology Project

Project Directors: Dr David Bar lex, ProfessorPaul Black and Professor Geoffrey Harrison,The Nuffield Chelsea Curriculum Trust, King'sCollege London, 552 King's Road, LondonSW10 OUA.

The Nuffield Chelsea Curriculum Trust and Long-man Education are supporting a curriculum de-velopment project for design and technology atKey Stages 3 and 4 (students aged 11-16 years). Itis intended that those who follow a course based onthe project's materials will develop a technicalunderstanding of the mathematics and sciencerequired to solve technological problems, skill inmaking, competence in the strategies of design andtechnology, a sensitivity to the needs of people andthe environment, and creativity in devising sol-utions to meet these needs (Newsletter 2).

Technology in Context

The Technology in Context Programme, StandingConference on Schools' Science and Technology,76 Portland Place, London W1N 4AA. Tele-phone: 071 278 2468.

Curriculum materials are part of an integratedsupport service for schools provided by the pro-ject, the prime aim of which is to help pupilsdisplay progressive ability to apply busidess con-cepts and knowledge to the process of designingand making. The project supports technologyeducation and the cross-curricular theme of econ-omic and industrial understanding. Several of theresource packs incorporate the use of scientificknowledge and skills in industrial contexts.

CREST (CREativity in Science andTechnology)

Director: Alan West, CREST Award Scheme,

Education Liaison Centre, University of Surrey,Guildford GU22 5XH.

This scheme is sponsored by the Department forEducation, and by industry, and is supportedjointly by the British Association for the Ad-vancement of Science and the Standing Confer-ence on Schools' Science and Technology. Itsprimary aim is to support scientific and technologi-cal problem solving by students in the 11-18 agerange. It complements normal school work and isnon-competitive, students gaining recognition fortheir work by a series of awards (bronze, silver orgold) each of which is criterion referenced.

References

Barlcx, D. (1991) Using science in design and tech-nology. Design and Technology Teaching, 23(3),148-51.

Carlson. W.B. and Gorman, M.E. (1990) Understand-ing invention as a cognitive process. The case ofThomas Edison and early motion pictures, 1888-91.Social Studies of Science, 20,387-430.

French, M.J. (1988) Invention and Evolution. Design inNature and Engineering. Cambridge. Cambridge Uni-versity Press.

Gorman, M.E. and Carlson, W.B. (1990) Interpretinginvention as a cognitive process: the case ofAlexar der Graham Bell, Thomas Edison and thetelephone. Science, Technology and Hwnan Values,15(2), 131-64.

Nuffield Design and Technology Initiative (1992) News-letter 2. Nuffield Chelsea Curriculum Trust and Long-man Education.

Rankine, W.J.M. (1857) The Science of Engineering.London, Griffin.

Secretary of State for Education and Secretary of Statefor Wales (1992) Technology for Ages 5 to 16 (1992).Proposals of the Secretary of State for Education andthe Secretary of State for Wales. London, Depart-ment for Education and Welsh Office.

Young. M. and Barnel, M. (1992) The TechnologicalBaccalaureate, An Interim Evaluation of the PilotProject prepared by the Post-I 6 Education Centrein Conjunction with the Technology and EducationUnit. London, Institute of Education, University ofLondon.

77

Index

abstraction, level of, 58academic knowledge, 12, 15AC induction motor, 54Advisory Council for Applied Research

and Development (ACARD), 41-2aeroplane design, 39Aikenhead, G., 22Aitken, H. J. G., 24, 49, 51American Association for the

Advancement of Sciences, 42applied science, 41, 42APU model of interaction between mind

and hand, 37APU science problem-solving model, 46artefactual discontinuity, 39ASE Policy Statement on Technology,

76-7Association for Science Education, 20,

46, 60, 61, 62, 64, 72attainment targets, 20-1, 23, 38-9, 61Australia, 14automobile, how it has altered our lives,

34

Bangladesh, 29Barlex, D., 75basic research, 25bearings, 45Black, Maggie. 29Blackett, P. M. S., 25Botswana, 64breathalyser, 22British Association for the Advancement

of Science. 78Bush, Vannevar, 25

CAD-CAM, 14capability tasks, 75-6Carnot, Sadi, 51-3CDT, 18-19, 20cellulase, 71-2cellulose, 71-2Clerk Maxwell. J.. 24, 54cognitive proccss models, 36-7

computer education, 14computers and women, 35consumer-contractor principle, 41contextualisation, 59Council of Industrial Design, 18CNC, 14craft subjects, 17CREST (Creativity in Science and

Technology), 78critic compt:tence, 61curriculum organisation. 57

DDT, 33De Forest, Lee, 24Department for Education, 78design, 15, 17-18

parameters, 49, 51, 76repertoire, 75

design and technologycapability, 61models of, 36-9

Design and Technology Assocation, 72design and technology in the National

Curriculum of England and Wales,20-2, 46-7, 61

Design Council, 18designer molecules. 49developing countrics, 64De Vries, Marc, 37

Edison, Thomas, 26education, economic influences on, 11-12Education Reform Act 1988, 17electronics, 18, 62, 63empirical inquiry, 43energy, 18England and Wales. 14, 17, 20, 38, 57, 60entitlement , 77environmental education, 64essential science, 73excreta-related diseases, 49-51

faults, diagnosing and rectifying, 61Fensham, Peter, 62

Finland, 11, 14Fleming, J. Ambrose, 24food manufacturing, 11. 45Forward Looking Infra-Red (FLIR)

System, 49French, M. J., 75

GCSE, 18gender and technology, 33-6Gandhi, M., 36Giedion, Sigfried, 23Goonatilake, Susantha, 31-2great egg race, 67-9green revolution, 32

handpumps, 28-9Henry's Law, 28Her Majesty's Lispectorate, 18, 20hidden curriculum, 59-60Hughes, Thomas, 26Hynes, Patricia, 33, 35

India. 28-9induction motor, 54Industrial Arts Association, 13information technology, 60infra-red radiation, 49Institute of Physics, 45interactive design cycle, 36, 47International Technology Education

Association, 13Ireland, 14

jeans, 70-2Joseph, Sir Keith, 19

Keller, Alexander, 26Kline, Stephen Jay, 27-8Knamiller, Gary, 63knowledge

action knowledge, 12propositional knowledge, 12

Kuhn, Thomas. 39

80

Lapland, 31Law, John, 32laws of nature, 41Lewis, John, 63

maker competence, 61Malawi, 63Marconi, Giuseppe, 24Maxwellian electromagnetic theory, 54mission-oriented research, 25modelling, 69monitoring competence, 61Mumford, Lewis, 22, 24MUST Project, 70-1, 72, 77

National Curriculum (England andWales), 17, 20, 38, 60

National Energy Foundation's NationalHome Energy Rating, 53

National Science Foundation, 25Netherlands, technology in, 13-14, 37. 38Newcomen engine, 44, 51Nigeria, 29Noble, David, 31, 32non-destructive testing, 45normal

science, 39technology, 39

Northern Foods plc. 45Nuffield Advanced Physics Project, 63Nuffield Design and Technology Project,

75, 75-6, 78Nuffield Foundation Science Teaching

Project. 19nuclear magnetic resonance imaging, 49

operacy, 63operational principles, 39, 48-9, 69,

69-70, 71ozone layer, 33

Pacey, Arnold, 26-7, 28, 29, 37paradigmatic competence. 61patent law, 49PCBs, 44Perkin, William Henry, 24Philippines, 64philosophy of technology, 23Polanyi, Michael, 48-9Popper, Karl, 23, 64problem-solving processes, 46, 62Project Hindsight, 25Project TRACES, 25Project Technology, 18Project 2061, 42propositional knowledge, 12

TECHNOLOGY'S CHALLENGE TO SCIENCE EDUCATION

pumps, village hand, 28-9pure science, 42

quality assurance and control, 44-5

Rankine, W. J. M., 76reconstruction of knowledge, 59reindeer herding, 32resource tasks, 75revolutionary science, 39Rosenberg, Nathan, 24-5Rothschild, Lord, 41

Salters' Science/Chemistry, 42-3SATIS Project, 69, 72, 77Schön, Donald, 12school and work, 12school technology, 36-9science

for action, 19and/for applications, 22for citizcns, 19curriculum, 18relations with technology, 25-6for scientists, 19and/with technology, 22, 42-3

Science with Technology Project, 72-4,77

scientific knowledge, 49Scotland, 14Secondary Science Curriculum Review,

46-7Smcaton, John, 44Smiles, Samuel, 23, 33snowmobile, 31-2Society for the History of Technology, 23Spain, 14Standing Conference on Schools' Science

and Technology, 78Statutory Order for Technology 1990, 17,

20-1, 36-7Staudenmaier, John, 51, 53Steinmetz, Charles P., 54strategic science, 42structures, 18STS, 19, 43, 62sucralose. 49systematic empirical inquiry, 43-4

technologicalawareness, 60, 61, 62Baccalaureate, 74change, 12determinism, 33knowledge, 49, 51-3, 54literacy, 60, 62. 77traditions, 39

7S

technologyacross the curriculum, 59-62as artefact, 26assessment, 33combincd with science, 62-4and external criteria, 48and gender, 33-6generic/enabling technologies, 42and household work, 35-6and human work, 35in the National Curriculum of England

and Wales, 17, 20-1, 38-9nature of, 26-9neutrality of, 31normal and revolutionary, 39not applied science, 24-5origins of school technology, 13-15relationship with science, 25-6school technology, 36-9as a separate subject, 57-9as a social gene, 35as system, 26-9as a third culture, 13transfer of, 31-2unintended outcomes of. 33and values, 13, 21, 31-3in vocational education, 15

Technology Enhancement Programme,77

Technology in Context Programme, 78technology-oriented science syllabuses,

63Thate er. Margaret, 18, 41thermodynamics, 53thought-in-action, 36tungsten-halogen lamps, 44TVEI, 11

values, 13, 21, 31-3vocationalism, 11, 12, 13

UNICEF's rural water supply andsanitation programme, 28-9

USA, technology in, 11, 13, 28, 43, 45,54, 65

useful science, 73user competence, 61Usher, A. P., 23

water-related diseases, 49-51water, rural supply of, 28-9Watt, James, 51Wigglesworth, V. B., 47-8women and technology, 33-6

Zimbabwe, 11, 63

DEVELOPING SCIENCE ANDTECHNOLOGY EDUCATIONTECHNOLOGY'S CHALLENGE TOSCIENCE EDUCATION

The book explores the relationship between science andtechnology in the school curriculum. In the past, sciencehas used technological applications to make scientificconcepts and ideas more understandable (science andapplications). It has also taken technological applicationsand then extracted the science involved in them in orderto make the learning of science more interesting andeffective (science of applications). In both cases tech-nology is serving the needs of science education.

With the incorporation of design and technology as acomponent of the general education of all children,there arises a new situation. Science has now to servethe needs of technology and act as a resource for thedevelopment of technological capability in children.However, science for applications is not the same asscience and applications or science of applications. Oftenthe science of traditional lessons nee,ls to be reworkedto make it useful in practical situations and related todesign parameters. Examples of science as a resource fortechnological capability are drawn from both 'real worldtechnology' and from 'school technology' to illustratewhat needs to be done if technology's challenge toscience education is to be met.

After thirteen years as a school teacher of science,David Layton worked at the University of Leeds, beingsuccessively Director of the Centre for Studies in ScienceEducation (1970-82) and Professor of Science Education(1973-89). He directed the DES project on Assessment ofPerformance in Science at Leeds (1977-82), the nationalevaluation of the TVEI curriculum (1985-88) and theSt William's Foundation Technology Education Project(1985-88). He served as a member of the Secreties ofState's Working Group on Technology in the NationalCurriculum and has written numerous books and articleson science and technology education, including fourvolumes for UNESCO on Innovations in Science andTechnology Education.

Open UniversityPress

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