Studies Of The Present Teaching Of Hygiene Through Domestic Science And Through Nature Study

In the early twentieth century, a curriculum known as nature study flourished in major city school systems, streetcar suburbs, small towns, and even rural one-room schools. This object-based approach to learning about the natural world marked the first systematic attempt to introduce science into elementary education, and it came at a time when institutions such as zoos, botanical gardens, natural history museums, and national parks were promoting the idea that direct knowledge of nature would benefit an increasingly urban and industrial nation. The definitive history of this once pervasive nature study movement, TeachingChildren Science emphasizes the scientific, pedagogical, and social incentives that encouraged primarily women teachers to explore nature in and beyond their classrooms. Sally Gregory Kohlstedt brings to vivid life the instructors and reformers who advanced nature study through on-campus schools, summer programs, textbooks, and public speaking. Within a generation, this highly successful hands-on approach migrated beyond public schools into summer camps, afterschool activities, and the scouting movement. Although the rich diversity of nature study classes eventually lost ground to increasingly standardized curricula, Kohlstedt locates its legacy in the living plants and animals in classrooms and environmental field trips that remain central parts of science education today.

Excerpt from Report of the Committee on the Teaching of Hygiene in Public Schools It is also partly due to the difference in cost. Physiology and hygiene, and in the great majority of schools the natural sciences have been taught by the general teacher. Domestic science is invariably taught by special teachers when cooking is included, and at least requires special supervisors to guide the general teachers when sewing is taught, while for both more or less special equipment is needed. Although expense has been an Obstacle to rapid extension, probably not over 100 cities having domestic science in their schools, Special teachers on the other hand have produced, are producing unquestionably more definite educational results. In the very few cities where there are special teachers of natural science, particularly in the grades, the educational results are conspicuously superior. Many educators believe nature study under the general teacher is in many cases, not in all, chiefly a way of killing-time. The salaries Of these special teachers vary from $300 to and this indicates fairly the wide range in their qualifications. Not infrequently we find that a general teacher from the grades or a normal graduate spends a few months, possibly a year, in perhaps a school Of local reputation only, cramming so-called domestic science, and begins teaching with this inadequate preparation. Many are high school, normal or college graduates who have taken Special courses Of two or three years at special institutes such as Pratt or Drexel. Another small group, college women as a rule, add to their undergraduate courses in biology and chemistry extended uni versity graduate work in physical sciences, in sociologic studies, and in arts and crafts, and special research work with such eminent scholars as Professor W. O. Atwater and others found at our chief educational centres. Special teachers in biologic subjects, in chemistry, physics, etc., are with very few exceptions in high schools only; are as a rule college men and women, who have had in many cases additional special courses Often indicated by master's or doctor's degrees. The authors Of numerous text books, including text-books on physiology and hygiene, are from these two groups Of specialists. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.