本論文主要是回顧美國自二十世紀初開始發展的科學教育的任務與理想，其中歷經兩次世界大戰與美蘇冷戰時期後，影響科學教育目標的轉變，而八○年代開始重視全民科學素養的目標，也影響現今21世紀襖期的科學教育發展。由於時間上跨過百年，要詳細討論不容易，故本文主要引用美國教育年鑑中對科學教育內容進行討論，再佐以相關文獻，並將科學教育的發展分成三個階段：第一階段是科學教育形成期：探討影響50年代中期以前的科學教育形成的沿革。第二階段是專業科學的教育發展期：探討由50年代中期以後至80年代之前科學教育的發展，此階段的目標是培育科學家，因此也發展出相當多的科學教育課程方案(如SAPA、ESS、SCIS、PSSC、BSCS、CHEMS等)。第三階段是全民科學素養拓展期：由80年代開始直到現今21世紀初期，則以影響較大的幾個科學教育方案(如STS，2061計畫，美國國家科學教育標準)來貫穿全文。在回顧相關文獻後，我們發現美國的科學教育發展目標主要在回應社會不同的需求，以及科技發展所需的人才培育，最終美國期望藉由科學教育之發展，讓自身能夠保持在世界領先的主導地位。

The main purpose of this article is to review literature in science education in the United States for the past one hundred years. In particular, we are interested in understanding what goals and visions were since the beginning of 20the century. It was quite difficult to cover all the topics happened or discussed for such a long time. Therefore, we made use of the yearbooks (3rd, 31st, 46th, and 59th) of National society for the Study of Education to organize the first part structure of the article and then we categorized the entire period into three phases for discussions. The first phase was the formation of science education. It discussed the origin and impact of forming science education field. This period was ranged form 1903 to the mid of 1950s. The second phase was the development of specific disciplines in science domains. It aimed to educate students to be scientists. Therefore, many science curricula were developed to meet the needs (e.g., SAPA, ESS, SCIS, PSSC, BSCS, CHEMS). This period covered form 1950s to 1980s. The third phase was the extension of science education to all Americans. We introduced several influential projects, such as STS, Project 2061, and NSES, to shed some light of our understanding of science education in the transition between he 20th and the 21st centuries. After reviewing the literature, we found the reform of science education was to respond to the various needs of the changing society and manpower for the technological decades. At last, the findings revealed that the US wishes to keep their leading position in the world via improving their science education outcomes in many ways.