Integrating Afrocentric Approaches for Meaningful Learning of Science Concepts

Abstract

Economic and social development in any modern country relies heavily on a sound scientific and technological base. Essentially, science constitutes an area of any nation's education system where many of the skills that are needed to stimulate development are learned, such as securing good health, fighting diseases, protecting the environment, farming and developing agriculture and developing new industries and technologies and even building resilience to climate change. There is a need therefore for a country to harness the intellectual and scientific capacity of its young people. Ironically, however, science (especially physical sciences) is one of the least popular areas within the educational system of most developing countries. Research shows that students ` and especially girls ` low interest in science and their relatively negative attitudes are at least partially attributed to the way science is taught at school. The observation is that the science curriculum tends to emphasise only its academic, strongly intellectual and abstract character, and is presented in a decontextualised way, distanced from everyday life, resulting in a considerable mismatch between science-in-society and science-in-school, and hence rendering science as a school subject which appears irrelevant and therefore not useful in everyday life. This perception of school science has detrimental implications for the epistemological access to the discipline. In this chapter we use a case study to share our experiences of how the learning of science in schools could potentially be enhanced through the integration of Afrocentric-indigenous knowledge as a means of strengthening epistemological access to complex and often abstract scientific concepts. We use ESD lenses to argue for science pedagogical practices that are creative, critical and empowering, as well as connected to real-life challenges and which engage with risk and uncertainty taking into consideration local and global cultures, practices and ideas