Science: universal, independent, but respectful of human values

How do girls and boys look at the science system and at the values of science, and what do they see? the questionnaire submitted to students also brought ethical and scientific policy issues to their attention. This is one of the ways in which they can be encouraged to take part as citizens in the scientific debate, enabling them to grasp the growing importance of the role of science and its close relations with society. The Pisa survey showed that the problem was not one of «giving a scientific explanation of the phenomena» but that our male and female students did not know how to «identify issues of a scientific nature» or «use evidence based on scientific data». For this reason it was deemed important to guide the youngsters in building competences based on scientific knowledge but also on the knowledge 'of science' (Mayer, 2008). Indeed, considerations on science, besides identifying its fascinating aspects and those that textbooks do not devote enough pages to, are an integral part of its topicality and of the process of understanding it. In the first group of questions of this first part of the questionnaire we also included, with the necessary adjustments, three questions from the survey carried out in norway on the Public Understanding of Science in 1999 (Kallerud, ramberg, 2002), that we believed were particularly suited to understanding and encouraging the youngsters' sensitivity on problematic issues of science and society. these questions (precaution principle, independence of the researchers, human values and scientific evidence), together with our own (speed of scientific progress, autonomy and responsibility, universality and sharing of knowledge, patentability, role of the market), were tested in the first surveys carried out (Valente, cerbara, 2006) and reused, with a few additions, in the current surveys. this enabled us to monitor the trend of the aforementioned data, confirming the hypotheses formulated and verified in the previous surveys and noting new elements that could lead us to further articulate, examine and change the formulated hypotheses, and, if necessary, bringing out new ones to test. the first question of the series was about the speed of scientific progress, towards which the interviewees adopted a cautious position: male and especially female students were in favour of a «less rapid development of the applications of scientific and technological discoveries, compensated by dwelling longer on the foreseeable results and risk factors», although, compared with the other surveys, a non negligible percentage of them was «in favour of a more rapid development of the applications of scientific and technological discoveries, since it is not possible to act in the full awareness of all the risk factors» (table 1). the youngest especially viewed speed as a resource as well as a concern and gave greater space to intermediate positions. However, as the previous surveys showed (Valente, cerbara, 2006, p. 111), the youngest males had greater difficulty in replying and, besides choosing the intermediate position more frequently, often answered with «I don't know». these surveys also confirmed the sensitivity towards the precaution principle. Most of the male and female students be lieved that «if the consequences that the modern technologies will have on human beings and the environment are uncertain, their use must be restricted». The high number of consensuses attributed to the precaution principle must be considered in relation with the themes treated - climate change and the water crisis. indeed, the precaution principle was more or less felt by the youngsters according to the environmental relevance of the context in which it was placed, as we were