以自然科学类通识课为代表的科学教育有助于提高全民的科学素养. 通识课“光学发展与人类文明”以光科学发展史为主干，设置基础性和补救性、进阶性和整合性、广博性和多元性三种层进式的教学环节，在构建光学基本知识体系的基础上，深入分析光学学科所蕴含的科学思维和内在规律，进而从多学科、跨文化的视角实现光科学与人类历史、社会的对话，实现光学的“广义科普”的教学目标.

As a representative of scientific education，generaleducation of science contributes to the improvement of the scientific literacy of people. The general courses，Developments of Optics and Human Civilization，focus on the history of opticsas the main body of the course and sets three levels of progressive teaching contents in practice. They correspond to the basic and remedial，the advanced and integrated，the extensive and diversifiedteaching contents. First，this curriculum designconstructs the system of basic opticalknowledge. Then it guides students to analyze the development regularity and the scientific thinking in the scientific research. Moreover，it realizes the dialogue between optics and human history as well as society throughthe multidisciplinary，cross-cultural perspective. It is the goal of the course construction to achieve the popularization for the wholesubject of optics to students.