In a time of increasingly rapid change in science and technology, competent teachers must continue to be informed about contemporary professional issues across a professional lifetime. Developing appropriate institutional structures that enable and promote such professional development is a very important task that needs attention, not only by teachers and their professional associations but by education policy makers at every level of school administration and government. Finally, it is disappointing to note the continuing limitations in systematic scholarship associated with such a central medium as the laboratory in science education. There is new information about limitations in the effectiveness of school science education; there also continue to be important reasons to believe that