In the last 30 years or so, science educators in the Western world have come to recognise the importance of the social and cultural context in which learning occurs (Cobern, 1993, 1994; Hodson, 1993; Leach & Scott, 2003) and have, through such movements as science, technology, society and the environment (Pedretti, 1997; Solomon, 1991; Solomon & Aikenhead, 1994) and the history, philosophy and sociology of science (Matthews, 1992), moved to embed these aspects in the science curriculum. Currently there is debate on ways of incorporating local and global political perspectives in the science curriculum for students in the compulsory years of schooling (Fensham, 2003; Hodson, 2003). The authors of this article suggest that the futures field of study is also a necessary and valuable dimension in science learning--not as an addition in the sense of more content but as a meta perspective (Slaughter, 1989). Their review and argument are not brand new (see, for example, Gough, 1982), but they feel it worthwhile to revisit and update what is being said about student images of futures, and the futures field of study, in the context of science education. This discussion is organized into four sections. In the first section the authors describe their own introduction to futures and comment on the status of futures studies in school curricula. In the second section they review what the literature and their own work reveals about what students think concerning possible futures, and the importance of these students' views. The third section provides a brief overview of the futures field of study with respect to its characteristics, its history and structure, and examines a subset of futures studies: critical futures. In the final section the authors examine futures in education with a particular reference to science education. They discuss how futures studies, and themes that arise from student images of futures, intersect science and, using a case example, outline how futures in education may contribute to effective and empowering science learning.