Science at DEC is designed to fulfil the four principal arguments put forward by the ASE (ASE Guide to Secondary Science Education 2006) to justify the place of Science in the core curriculum: 1) The reliable and useful knowledge argument - a scientific habit of mind allows students to rationally tackle questions and problems based on empirical evidence. 2) The economic argument – Science can be seen as pre professional education which enables students to access many careers in the modern world. 3) The cultural argument – Science is one of the great achievements of our culture and students should have the opportunity to gain knowledge of how it was derived. 4) The democratic argument – scientifically literate citizens are likely to become democratically empowered and able to make informed judgements of their own.