Education in Chemistry – Richard Needham
“Why do students find it so difficult to apply their maths skills in science lessons? In recent years teacher members of the Association for Science Education (ASE) have raised concerns that mathematical aspects of science are often not well understood by students. To look into this problem, we conducted a small-scale survey of science teachers. We found that, in general, teachers were confident in using mathematical ideas in their teaching, particularly in their use of graphs. But the same teachers reported that their students were less confident using graphs – several commented that their students needed a great deal of support with this. This confirmed what we’d found in informal conversations with science teachers who identified rearranging mathematical equations and graph work as two key areas that students find difficult.”(more)