The main goal of learning science at secondary level is for students to understand the basic concepts of physics, chemistry, and biology. Other goals of science education would be to train students to make sense of the world. Scientific learning could also be viewed as learning to participate in very specific and often specialized forms where students learn to plan, observe and record, to represent and analyze data, to formulate hypotheses and conclusions, to connect theories, models, and data. All these activities provide meaningful context and situation which provide students with genuine language use. From a language acquisition perspective, science can serve as a focal point around which all forms of verbal and non-verbal communication and literacy in ESL (English-as-second-language) can develop. Specifically, science offers: interesting, relevant, and challenging content; opportunities for students to negotiate meanings; an abundance of appropriate language input; material for development of reading; activities for development of writing; and experiences with the forms and functions of English.
