Uri Haber-Schaim, a leader in science education for nearly half a century, died 16 September 2020 in his home in Jerusalem, at the age of 94. He is survived by his wife of 73 years, Shlomith, two daughters, a son, and three grandchildren.
Uri was born in Berlin on 8 February 1926 and immigrated with his family to Rehovot, Palestine, in 1933. He received his MSc in physics from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1949 under the supervision of Giulio Racah and his PhD from the University of Chicago in 1951 under the supervision of Enrico Fermi. After short-term positions at the Weizmann Institute of Science, the University of Bern, and the University of Illinois, Uri became assistant professor of physics at MIT in 1956.
A summer job in 1957 as director of the Wave Group with the newly formed Physical Science Study Committee (PSSC) ignited his passion for science educational reform. He continued to work with PSSC, leaving MIT in 1961 to shift from high-energy physics to science education.
Uri was involved in developing almost all aspects of the PSSC curriculum, including textbooks, teacher’s guides, and tests. When PSSC Physics came under free license after the second edition, he developed and prepared the subsequent editions, first as director of the Physical Science Group and then as director of its successor, the Institute for Curriculum Development in Science and Mathematics at Boston University, where he was a professor of physics and science education. PSSC Physics went through seven editions from 1960 to 1991 and was translated into 17 languages. Ten years after the start of PSSC, more than half of high school physics students in the US were using the course in its entirety. Later revisions included a more up-to-date introduction to optics and quantum physics.
As Uri recalled: “[The spirit and substance of the course] reflected the original intentions: the unity of physics, the sense of development, models, predictions. . . . To convey the spirit of science, the text was written in a narrative style, which demanded that the students follow the development of ideas rather than look for a brief statement of a law. . . . The way in which the laboratory work was used was also new for American students in the early 1960s. Gone was the cookbook with its detailed instructions and ready-to-fill tables. With economically designed equipment, the lab became the place where the entire class could converse with nature and try to recognize its regularities.”
Convinced of the advantages of studying the physical sciences in junior high school, Uri’s group developed and prepared Introductory Physical Science (IPS), a laboratory-oriented one-year course for 8th and 9th grades on the properties of matter and the atomic model of matter. The second-year continuation of the course, Physical Science II (PSII), was later revised as Energy: A Sequel to IPS. The first commercial edition of IPS was published in 1967, the ninth in 2010.
Uri was also interested in expanding the ranks of qualified science teachers. He designed teacher-training programs and conducted workshops and institutes all over the US and in many other countries, from Chile to Japan.
Uri was the 1970 recipient of the Oersted Medal given by the American Association of Physics Teachers for “outstanding, widespread, and lasting impact on the teaching of physics.” In 2007 Uri received, on behalf of the Physical Science Study Committee, the first American Physical Society Excellence in Physics Education Award: “For the revitalization of subject matter through the involvement of teachers and researchers at all levels, the elevation of the instructional role of the laboratory, the development and utilization of innovative instructional media, and the emphasis on discipline-centered inquiry and the nature of physics . . .”
Uri loved music and had two grand pianos in his home in Belmont, Massachusetts, where he frequently played chamber music with friends. He conducted the Belmont Orchestra for many years and recorded an album of Schubert piano duos.
Uri and Shlomith had many friends and colleagues from all over the world whom they enjoyed visiting and hosting. After he and his wife returned to Israel in 2006, Uri volunteered as treasurer of their reform synagogue, tutored a student who left ultra-orthodoxy, and worked to bring together Israeli Arabs and Jews.
Uri once wrote to a friend: “Life is a succession of accidental events interspersed with the exercise of free will.” Throughout his lifetime, Uri made the most of both.
