Dewey and Chemistry: The Water Cycle Revisited
Stephen Beasley-Murray
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Give FeedbackConclusion:-from philosophy to practice
Particularly in science, Dewey became the patron saint of high school teachers. His philosophy, however, proved much more difficult to put into practice than, perhaps, even Dewey himself could have realised. The more rigorously scientific approach taken by Piaget’s followers as evidenced in Constructivist writings, has brought Dewey back into the class room through the back door. In the following lesson plans, Deweyan philosophy is implemented in and through gains made bv Constructivist research. Teaching the Water Cycle according to the lesson plans described for the Yale New Haven Teacher Institutes 1994 Units, turned out to be more difficult than expected too. The lesson plans of 1994 were fundamentally good but they were not practically grounded enough for my kind of students, and more importantly, I had ignored essenfal aspects of Dewey and Constructivism that would have made all the difference. Rather than start from scratch, just as a painter reworks a canvas, so the following lesson plans are a reworking of the 1994 units—with the added dimensions of Professor Lasaga’s inspired Geological expertise and the Internet.