Science and Society in the Classroom: Using Sociocultural Perspec ...

alternate technologies does not address the issue that energy choices and concerns are always context specific and involve the values, preferences, assessment, and judgment of individuals and societies (Tatum, 1995).

Scientists' theoretical commitments determine what observations they make and influence the interpretation of those observations. A similar relationship exists between children's conceptual frameworks and their interpretation of scientific observation in the classroom; that is, when children encounter evidence that conflicts with their theories, they may not see the conflict. They may ignore or distort the evidence so that it fits their theories, or they may modify their theories to account for the evidence (Kuhn, 1989, p. 60).

This study drew upon contextualized curriculum ideas developed by Koul (1997). Koul (1997) described three themes that helped conceptualize contextualized science curriculum for this study. The first theme of contextualized science curriculum emerged from insights on the nature of scientific methodology. Koul (1997) emphasized that “there should be emphasis on scientific methodology through the generation and testing of knowledge in a specific context. … students may have trouble learning if they fail to find a referent that enables them to connect their everyday experiences with the scientific experiences they encounter at school” (p. 61). Learning would be more meaningful if curriculum materials could build from the intersection of the everyday and scientific domains. This objective can be restated as the second theme of contextualized science: “science curriculum should validate and evaluate everyday contextual experiences” (Koul, 1997, p. 62). The relation of science to other knowledge systems and to the sociocultural, political, and environmental dimensions of scientific practices generates the need for the third theme: “developing a context for action by engaging in science, technology, and society issues” (Koul, 1997, p. 65). Figure 1 presents the conceptual mapping and alignment between Koul's three themes of contextualized science curricula and the framework of contextualized curriculum used in this