We frequently encounter ethical dilemmas and issues in our daily lives but how much place should there be for a focus on ethics in science education?

At one pole are those who think that the function of science education, perhaps especially school science education, is simply to introduce learners to core scientific knowledge and scientific practices. Therefore, the most that ethics might be expected to do is to help motivate learners. For example, if teaching a secondary school physics lesson about the generation of electricity, one might include, for general interest, a little bit about the ethical implications of such generation from renewable as opposed to nonrenewable resources.

At the other pole are those who think that while a central function of science education is indeed to introduce learners to core scientific knowledge and scientific practices, these are frequently intertwined with ethical questions – as the electricity generation example indicates....

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