FOREWORD 



DuKiNG the past few years, the views of educators on the place 

 of biological science in the secondary school have become more 

 definite. The report of the Committee of the National Education 

 Association on the ^'Reorganization of Science in Secondary 

 Schools " is beginning to make its impress on the minds of thinking 

 teachers of science. The junior high school movement, with the 

 accompanying improvement in the teaching of elementary science, 

 is giving a background of science phenomena that the children of 

 a decade ago did not have. Health teaching and environmental 

 science teaching have produced certain fundamental science con- 

 cepts on which a course in biological science may be built. 



While the place of biological science is not fixed in all parts of 

 this country, the tendency is well marked to place it in the tenth 

 year of the school curriculum.^ Recognizing this, New Civic 

 Biology has attempted to build on the unorganized science facts 

 that the high school pupil has already assimilated. The trend 

 toward better health and citizenship building has been recognized, 

 and it is hoped that this book will work toward the ideal develop- 

 ment of efficient, thinking citizens. 



A course in biology in the secondary school must be determined 

 by other factors than the mere training of the teacher. It must 

 reach the capabilities of the student, it must appeal to his interest ; 

 it must interpret his environment. And most important of all, 

 it must, by means of the vehicle of the problem and the project, 

 train him in the technique of thinking. Ideas, not types, should 

 be the ultimate development of the laboratory work. As Dr. 

 Walter so well points out, the environmental conditions are often 

 more important than the type. Most important, too, are the 



^ See " The Place of Science in the Secondary School," G. W. Hunter, School Review, 

 May-June, 1925. 



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