Sciences for the 21st century. The case of “Sciences for the Contemporary World” in Spain

Abstract

Diverse studies have shown that, increasingly, there are less people who feel attracted to sciences. The problem is especially serious, on the one hand because the scientific knowledge is called to play a more and more important role in the social-decision making process and the citizenship must be able to participate in it and, on the other, because the number of students that attends university science degrees is decreasing, circumstance that will have undesirable socioeconomic effects. This work analyses some of the causes of this situation and presents the contributions that can be done, in the Spanish case, to the scientific formation of students and to the renovation of the subject “Sciences for the Contemporary World” that is currently taught in the Spanish classrooms and has been offered since September 2008.