ICR Hopes Online Master's Will Create Science Teachers with Biblical Worldview
by Jim Brown
May 11, 2006
(AgapePress) - - A well-known creationist group is now offering an online master's program for science teachers. Through the Internet-based curriculum, the California-based Institute for Creation Research (ICR) is hoping to reach out to more educators and create a network of science teachers.Those teachers who enroll in the program will learn how to design grade-level appropriate science lessons and help their students discern between the evolutionary and biblical worldviews of science. The 11-course program includes a core comprised of science education, educational psychology, curriculum design and research courses; prescribed electives in specific areas of science, including astronomy, ecology, physics and geology; and two electives of the student's choice.
View more details on the ICR Online Science Education Degree Program
Dr. Patricia Nason, chair of ICR's Science Education Department, says the Institute has had a graduate school for many years, offering face-to-face instruction and degree programs. However, she notes, for many potential students it is difficult for them to put their career, family or other obligations on hold in order to travel to San Diego to get their degree.
Nason says ICR is hoping this new degree program will help current and aspiring science teachers who need the convenience of a distance education model. And at the same time, she adds, "Hopefully this will create a network of teachers so that we're all working together and we have a good explanation for why we believe in creation science -- not just because it's biblical."
The ICR Graduate School administrator emphasizes that this field of study, while it has a basis in scripture, is an empirical, scientific discipline -- not a philosophical or religious one. "And I'm not saying that loosely," she asserts, "but there is a scientific foundation to creation science."
Part of the vision for ICR's online Master of Science Education program is for those who take part in it to go on to contribute to a larger scheme of "turning the country around with a creation worldview," Nason says. But before these teachers can begin transmitting that worldview, she notes, it must be instilled in the educators themselves.
"I find that many science teachers in Christian schools do not have enough of a science background to be able to even talk about the difference between evolution and creation," the Institute's Science Education chair says. "And the biggest problem," she adds, "is many of them use secular textbooks because there aren't very many Christian textbooks in science education."
Dr. Nason says the Institute's online science education master's degree program is designed to help science teachers "communicate the truths of biblical creation to middle and high school students." All the courses in the program approach the content in the same way that ICR researchers approach the study of origins, she asserts -- that is, if an idea is contrary to God's Word, it is false.
The ICR courses for this online master's program are offered in 12-week quarters. In addition to Internet-based instruction, the courses will include quizzes, class discussions, written papers, projects, class presentations and student interaction.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online. Inquiries about the ICR Online Science Education Degree Program can be directed to Dr. Patricia Nason at pnason@icr.edu or by phone at (936) 564-5469.
