EDITORIAL

TEN ISSUES OF THIS JOURNAL

View from the Americas

You have in your hands the tenth issue of the Journal of Science Education. This is a surprise to some people because, when we begun this project five years ago some colleagues warned us: “Most new journal-projects do not survive more than 1-2 initial issues”. Since 2000 the Editorial Board and other Committees have worked hard to provide teachers in secondary schools and university and researchers with a variety of advice, useful information and articles about research in science education and modern methodology for teaching and learning biology, chemistry, physics, environmental science and other. We have published about 130 peer-reviewed articles in English (47%) and Spanish (53%) with authors from 36 countries. Our authors are: from Europe (47%), America (45%), Asia (7%), Africa (1%). About 45% of published works have been about research in science education, most of the rest were about various modern methods and new educational approaches, including computers and educational technology, modern methods of evaluation and assessment, laboratories and so on. We also looked for, published and distributed peer evaluated educational software, for example, the N1, Vol. 3; N1 and N 2, Vol. 4 were accompanied by CD-ROMs with software about biological and chemical education and statistics for science subjects. The Journal includes special sections with reports about new books, international and national congresses, science news, web pages and other useful information for teachers.

Our future plans include activities for further increasing the scientific and pedagogical value of published works, because our readers hope to see greater number of interesting articles about practical innovations in the class-room and new research results about science teaching and learning. We will look for and publish more interesting results from relevant research projects that will contribute to the improvement of science education and address real educational problems, which will be useful for teachers, learners and researchers in science education. The main objective of this Journal is to provide more help for in-service and pre-service teachers in secondary schools and university and researchers. For this reason we have to look for ways to increase our audience by widely distributing the Journal on paper and on-line (www.colciencias.gov.co/rec) in order to reach more teachers in schools and universities internationally who can understand English and Spanish.

View from Europe.

There is no doubt that publishing the tenth issue of this journal marks a major achievement and one that would not have been reached without the enthusiasm, vision and tenacity of the editor with support from Editorial Board, Committee of Advisers and Committee of Support. This journal has been a dream, almost a child, for much more than five years. One of us has to confess – to his shame – to having been one of the doubters who did not expect the journal to last much more than a year. He was sure that starting up such a journal in Europe would have been almost impossible – and, guessed that it would be even more difficult in Colombia / South America. It is appropriate at this stage to take the opportunity to congratulate the all concerned on reaching No 10 (In England this would make us the Prime Minister! – since s/he always resides at No 10 Downing Street in London) and wish the journal ‘Happy Birthday’ and many more successful volumes.

For this journal to be educationally viable and to meet its aspirations of contributing to the improvement of science learning worldwide it must engage its readers in thinking critically about science and science education. In so doing various articles will support, stimulate, sometimes annoy and sometimes inspire readers in their own science learning and teaching. (Of course not all articles will be useful to everyone – even if they are able to understand both English and Spanish.) However it is unlikely that many school or university science students will find the contents of this journal directly applicable or of interest and thus it is the teachers who read (or write) the articles who will actually improve the science learning experience for their students. Indeed this is an important message to all readers / science teachers that it is in their own working with students that the quality of science education will be improved for those students. Published materials, curriculum schemes and equipment and materials and apparatus for practical work can all be helpful in learning science, but it seems that it is contact with able teachers who are enthusiastic about their subject that are most effective in inspiring students to learn science and for encouraging some of these students to become scientists and science teachers themselves.

Hopefully, an increasing number of readers will also become writers and use this journal to share good ideas and effective practice with colleagues or to raise issues and discuss science ideas that seem difficult and the problems of teaching them.

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This Journal is indexed and abstracted in Chemical Abstracts (CA), Educational Research Abstracts Online (ERA) UK, (http://www.tandf.co.uk/era); Contents Pages in Education, UK and in other data bases. In different Committees of this Journal we have experts from about 20 countries. We would like to thank our authors, referees and subscribers, all members of our team and Committees, and especially different Colombian educational and scientific authorities: Universities, Colombian Academy of Science, Colciencias, for their invaluable help and support that made possible the development of this international project for improving the science education.

A. Goodwin, Y. Orlik