Why is India dropping evolution and the periodic table from school science?
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-01750-2
EXCERPT: A series of changes to school science teaching have resulted in the deletion of the periodic table, explanations of evolution and electromagnetism, and discussions about the sustainable use of natural resources from the textbooks used by children aged 14–16.
These and other topics were removed from the curriculum last year to help lighten students’ workloads during the COVID-19 pandemic. But they have now been removed from textbooks, too. The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), the government-funded but operationally autonomous body tasked with producing India’s textbooks, has not discussed the changes — which will affect more than 38 million children — with parents, teachers or researchers. Those who study science education have told Nature that they’re baffled, not least by the lack of any engagement.
NCERT also wants “a rootedness and pride in India, and its rich, diverse, ancient and modern culture and knowledge systems and traditions”. Some people interpret this as a motivation to remove the likes of Charles Darwin and Michael Faraday, and instead use the time to learn more about India’s precolonial history of science.
India is not the only postcolonial country grappling with the question of how to honour and recognize older or Indigenous forms of knowledge in its school curricula. New Zealand is trialling the teaching of Māori ‘ways of knowing’ — mātauranga Māori — in a selection of schools across the country. But it is not removing important scientific content to accommodate the new material, and for good reason... (MORE - missing details)
RELATED (scivillage): A dangerous trend to decolonize the scientific method
The Fluoride Controversy Never Dies
https://www.acsh.org/news/2023/05/30/flu...dies-17093
The fluoride issue has moved from conspiracy theories of the 1940s and 1950s, claiming it was a communist plot or a government mind-control trick, to today’s science-based debate. The outcome of a court case involving fluoridation could have serious ramifications for EPA rules in the years to come.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-01750-2
EXCERPT: A series of changes to school science teaching have resulted in the deletion of the periodic table, explanations of evolution and electromagnetism, and discussions about the sustainable use of natural resources from the textbooks used by children aged 14–16.
These and other topics were removed from the curriculum last year to help lighten students’ workloads during the COVID-19 pandemic. But they have now been removed from textbooks, too. The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), the government-funded but operationally autonomous body tasked with producing India’s textbooks, has not discussed the changes — which will affect more than 38 million children — with parents, teachers or researchers. Those who study science education have told Nature that they’re baffled, not least by the lack of any engagement.
NCERT also wants “a rootedness and pride in India, and its rich, diverse, ancient and modern culture and knowledge systems and traditions”. Some people interpret this as a motivation to remove the likes of Charles Darwin and Michael Faraday, and instead use the time to learn more about India’s precolonial history of science.
India is not the only postcolonial country grappling with the question of how to honour and recognize older or Indigenous forms of knowledge in its school curricula. New Zealand is trialling the teaching of Māori ‘ways of knowing’ — mātauranga Māori — in a selection of schools across the country. But it is not removing important scientific content to accommodate the new material, and for good reason... (MORE - missing details)
RELATED (scivillage): A dangerous trend to decolonize the scientific method
The Fluoride Controversy Never Dies
https://www.acsh.org/news/2023/05/30/flu...dies-17093
The fluoride issue has moved from conspiracy theories of the 1940s and 1950s, claiming it was a communist plot or a government mind-control trick, to today’s science-based debate. The outcome of a court case involving fluoridation could have serious ramifications for EPA rules in the years to come.