Abstract

The University of York Science Education Group is well known for its innovative research- informed curriculum development projects. The most recent development, York Science, has endeavoured to use research evidence to inform all aspects of the design process. The project aims to develop high quality questions and tasks that will provide evidence of students’ learning. I will describe the work of the project and some of the lessons we have learned.

Biography

Mary Whitehouse directs both the York Science Project and the Twenty First Century Science Project and is a member of the University of York Science Education Group (UYSEG). She has taught science in schools and college as well as working in science curriculum development and publishing. Mary was editor of the ASE journal School Science Review 1996 – 2000. She has taken part in a number of major curriculum projects in science education – including Science in Society and SATIS with ASE in the 1980s, Advancing Physics with the Institute of Physics and OCR , and Twenty First Century Science with OCR , UYSEG, and Nuffield. She has always been interested in the relationship between assessment and teaching and has been Chief Examiner for GCSE Physics and GCSE Science. She is a Fellow, and Council member, of the Institute of Physics and a Chartered Science Teacher.