The practice of science is as old as man himself and man from time immemorial has means, methods and strategies for survival in the world he lives. The knowledge of science sorts to interpret every attempt of human to explore and manage his own small world. This exploration and activities of man is what is brought to bear on modern science and technology. In Nigeria today, both indigenous and modern science are employed to create a better environment however, both are practiced in different context and their linkage is advocated. An attempt has been made by various researchers on making science relevant to students by connecting science to their daily life’s and it so reflected in science curriculum. This research explores indigenous science practices on student acquisition of basic science process skills for development of science. Hence the following research questions were raised; What indigenous practice blends with school science curriculum that can aid students’ basic skills in science? Do basic science teachers apply basic science process skills to basic science? Are students able to transfer the knowledge of indigenous science practices into basic science in the classrooms? Using multi-stage random sampling (20) local governments was selected from the One hundred and seventy five existing local governments in South- Western Nigeria. From each local government eight (8) urban and eight (8) rural schools were selected and from each school two (2)female and two(2) male science teachers was selected to make a total population of eighty (80) science teachers used for this study. While ten (10) students each were selected by purposive sampling from two (2) rural schools and two (2) urban schools. This selection was based on the proximity of the schools to the wealth of indigenous activities existing in the local governments hence; the total number of students sampled was forty (40).
The instrument used was a self- constructed check- list indicating various indigenous science practices and structured questionnaire. The statistical method used for data analysis was descriptive statistics and t-test. The results revealed more than seven indigenous practices however only ten blend with basic science curriculum. However the result showed that rural learners can transfer the indigenous science skills into basic science classroom because they understood the rudiment of the indigenous practices better than the urban learners to whom some of the indigenous practices were rare.