habits

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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Investigations in science and technology/engineering
involve a range of skills, habits of mind, and subject matter knowledge. The
purpose of science and technology/engineering education in </span><st1:state style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;" w:st="on">Massachusetts</st1:state><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> is to enable students to draw
on these skills and habits, as well as on their subject matter knowledge, in
order to participate productively in the intellectual and civic life of
American society and to provide the foundation for their further education in
these areas if they seek it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The Nature of Science :</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Science may be described as the attempt to give good
accounts of the patterns in nature. The result of scientific investigation is
an understanding of natural processes. Scientific explanations are always
subject to change in the face of new evidence. Ideas with the most durable
explanatory power become established theories or are codified as laws of
nature. Overall, the key criterion of science is that it provide a clear,
rational, and succinct account of a pattern in nature. This account must be
based on data gathering and analysis and other evidence obtained through direct
observations or experiments, reflect inferences that are broadly shared and
communicated, and be accompanied by a model that offers a naturalistic
explanation expressed in conceptual, mathematical, and/or mechanical terms.
Here are some everyday examples of patterns seen in nature:</span></div>
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</span>The sun appears to move each day from the
eastern horizon to the western horizon.</span></div>
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</span>Virtually all objects released near the surface
of the earth sooner or later fall to the ground.</span></div>
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</span>Parents and their offspring are similar, e.g.,
lobsters produce lobsters, not cats.</span></div>
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</span>Green is the predominant color of most plants.</span></div>
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</span>Some objects float while others sink.</span></div>
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</span>Fire yields heat.</span></div>
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</span>Weather in <st1:place w:st="on">North America</st1:place>
generally moves from west to east.</span></div>
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</span>Many organisms that once inhabited the earth no
longer do so.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It is beyond the scope of this document to examine the
scientific accounts of these patterns. Some are well known, such as that the
rotation of the earth on its axis gives rise to the apparent travel of the sun
across the sky, or that fire is a transfer of energy from one form to another.
Others, like buoyancy or the cause of extinction, require subtle and sometimes
complex accounts. These patterns, and many others, are the puzzles that
scientists attempt to explain.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The Nature of Technology/Engineering :</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">      Technology/engineering seeks different ends from those
of science. Engineering strives to design and manufacture useful devices or
materials, defined as technologies, whose purpose is to increase our efficacy
in the world and/or our enjoyment of it. Can openers are technology, as are
microwave ovens, microchips, steam engines, camcorders, safety glass, zippers,
polyurethane, the Golden Gate Bridge, much of Disney World, and the “Big Dig”
in Boston. Each of these, with innumerable other examples, emerges from the scientific
knowledge, imagination, persistence, talent, and ingenuity of practitioners of
technology/engineering. Each technology represents a designed solution, usually
created in response to a specific practical problem, that applies scientific
principles. As with science, direct engagement with the problem is central to
defining and solving it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">The Relationship Between Science and
Technology/Engineering :</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">                  In spite of their different goals, science and
technology have become closely, even inextricably, related in many fields. The
instruments that scientists use, such as the microscope, balance, and
chronometer, result from the application of technology/engineering. Scientific
ideas, such as the laws of motion, the relationship between electricity and
magnetism, the atomic model, and the model of DNA, have contributed to
achievements in technology and engineering, such as improvement of the internal
combustion engine, power transformers, nuclear power, and human gene therapy.
The boundaries between science and technology/engineering blur together to
extend knowledge.</span></div>
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Purpose and Nature of Science and Technology/Engineering

Investigations in science and technology/engineering involve a range of skills, habits of mind, and subject matter knowledge. The purpos...

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