Sceintific Inquiry and Nature of Science in my classroom

If Nature of Science (NOS) and Scientific Inquiry were systematically integrated into curricula and taught explicitly in my classroom...

Goals might be:
1. To improve scientific literacy of students
2. Help students discover the value in using scientific inquiry to construct their own knowledge
3. Create opportunities for students to develop positive attitudes toward science
4. Improve the students’ views of the scientific endeavor
5. Improve the learners’ views of NOS
6. Lead students to value the importance of learning about NOS
7. Students understand the source and limits of scientific knowledge

Overall:
1. I would cover fewer concept topics and plan for more discussions about NOS and Scientific Inquiry .
2. I would be explicit in our class expectations of student understandings of NOS and Scientific Inquiry.
3. I would communicate to students the importance of learning about NOS by assessing it after instruction.
4. I would strive to be flexible and not distort these guides into a fixed set of sequences and steps to follow each and every situation.

In class I would:
1. Have students complete a lab or activity first
2. Lead students in reflection on what they did procedurally, why they did it, and what implications this has
a. Discuss the distinction between observation and inference,
b. Discuss the difference between scientific laws and theories,
c. Consider how imagination and creativity were important,
d. Note examples of the tentative nature of scientific knowledge,
e. Be aware of cultural and societal influences on science and scientists,
f. Consider the credibility of several explanations,
g. Remember that scientific knowledge is never absolute.
3. Remind students that the completed activity, while not exactly “real world” science, it’s a reasonable facsimile.

Shouldn’t we consider NOS and Scientific Inquiry important in both domains, cognitive and affective? Will the improved scientific literacy of our students make a difference if the students only receive them, but do not incorporate them as part of their characterization of themselves as students of science?

For example, it's been pointed out that the “arguments against the validity of evolution” include the challenge of testing. Scientific testing seems to be a very cognitive activity. Perhaps those anti-evolution arguments are more in the affective domain?

In the British periodical “Philosophy Now” there is a regular article called “Dear Socrates” in which a modern day writer responds to a question speaking as Socrates. In the September/October 2009 issue, “Socrates” writes that

"it is not so much our being related to animals that so riles the religionists as that this relation infringes on our presumed prerogative to use them [animals] as we will. The former “insults” us as being “mere” animals but the latter inconveniences us which is even more intolerable!"

To me, “Socrates’s” view of the anti-evolution argument is based more in the affective domain rather than in the cognitive. Could much of the anti-evolution, anti-science movement be based in the affective domain?

Helping students hold “positive views” of science means much more than having students parrot back the reasons science is right. Do we want students to act consistently according to NOS values they have internalized?