Research On The Philosophy Of Science In Primary School Science Curriculum

The development of the philosophy of science has great influence on the innovation of science education and science curriculum. In the second half of the 20^th century, the philosophy of science in the western countries experienced cultural turn, which makes the philosophy of science achieve the change from traditional philosophy of science into the philosophy of science and culture. The cultural turn of the philosophy of science has altered people's understanding of the nature of science from the perspective of tradition to the perspective of modernity. The philosophy of science and culture is extending to the theory of value rather than epistemology concerning knowledge. The turn from the philosophy of science to the philosophy of science and culture facilitates the communication between science and humanity, promoting the integration of science education and humanity education, which is of great significance to the research on primary school science curriculum.The philosophy of science is the key theoretical base in the innovation of education of science. The culture-oriented philosophy of science brings about significant and far-reaching influence on the formation and development of theories of science education, and may trigger in-depth reform in the characteristics, objectives, contents, implementation and assessment of primary school science curriculum. The philosophy of science affects reform in primary school science curriculum in many ways. The reform in primary school science curriculum shows thoroughly the essence of the philosophy of science, containing rich ideas of science philosophy. Its aim can be interpreted as the reconstruction of science culture, which indicates that science is not a sort of knowledge any more, but a culture, with the intention of cultivating pupils' qualities of science and culture. In terms of the contents of primary school science curriculum, science knowledge originates from life, nature and society. Achieved by people during the exploration of the nature, it is temporary, subjective and constructive. It is socially constructed and can be constantly revised and denied. The best means of obtaining science knowledge is to probe, which can assist students to build on the knowledge, ability, scientific attitude and value. The assessment of primary school science curriculum is all-inclusive and multi-dimensioned, going beyond the fields of knowledge and process. The way of assessment covers a variety of perspectives and the purpose is to enhance students' all-round development.Based on the philosophy of science, the paper gives a reflection upon the aims, contents, and implementation of primary school science curriculum respectively from the perspectives of science culture, scientific knowledge view and sociology of science knowledge. It sets forth three major problems existing in the reform of China's primary school science curriculum: absoluteness of scientific knowledge view; more attention to results of science and neglect of science process; emphasis of learning science and disregard of doing scientific research. On the basis of the reflection, the paper adopts the new ideas of the philosophy of science, i.e. the ideas of the philosophy of science culture, to construct the system of primary school science curriculum, change the value of science education which stresses excessively fundamental knowledge and skills and reach the goal of primary school science curriculum that focuses on the cultivation of scientific qualities. The integration of history of science, the philosophy of science and sociology of science into the contents of primary school science curriculum creates scientific and logical content system. This helps students build up awareness of both learning science knowledge well and having good knowledge of the formation and process of science knowledge. It lays stress on inquiry learning-centered teaching method in primary school science curriculum, with the efforts to develop students' ability in exploration of science and nurture their good traits in loving science, learning science, doing science and using science. It also attaches importance to science culture-based assessment, formative assessment, so that students' full development can be promoted through assessment. Moreover, approaches and methods of developing primary school curriculum resources, together with specific contents, become explicit, which can push forward the development of primary school science curriculum.As a perspective of research, current philosophy of science has the tendency towards relativism. It is a challenge for the reform in primary school science curriculum, so the viewpoint in the paper keeps to relativism. Under the guidance of relativism in the philosophy of science, the paper states the future innovation in primary school science curriculum needs to coordinate the relationship between absoluteness and relativity of science truth, phase and continuity of science development, individual science and public science. In the meantime, diversity of science methods also has an impact on primary school science curriculum. The development of primary school science curriculum should stick to this diversity, conduct the reform with new views of science and methodology, apply inquiry learning into teaching of science, foster the combination of science and humanity and put the objective of primary school science curriculum directing to the cultivation of students' scientific qualities into reality.