A teacher encourages students to ask questions about natural phenomena. This…

Concept

The nature of science can be understood in two contrasting ways. A product view treats science as the finished body of knowledge it has accumulated — facts, laws and definitions that are received by the learner. A process view treats science as the activity by which that knowledge is built: observing, questioning, hypothesising, testing and revising.

Application

Here the teacher's move is to invite students to raise their own questions about natural phenomena. A question is the entry point of the scientific method: an observation provokes a question, the question is turned into a testable idea, and evidence decides the outcome. By making the learner the questioner rather than the receiver, the teacher presents science as something one does — a process of inquiry and exploration.

Contrast

• A set of fixed facts — a product view, in which knowledge is already settled and the learner's task is reception rather than questioning.

• A memorization subject — a narrower product view, in which accurate recall of given content is treated as the measure of learning.

• An art activity — a different domain, whose aim is aesthetic expression and interpretation rather than evidence-tested explanation of the natural world.

• A process of inquiry and exploration — knowledge is generated by asking and testing, which is what the teacher's encouragement models.

Result

Therefore the teacher’s practice reflects science as a process of inquiry and exploration.