Global warming: A myth?

Increase in the concentration of several greenhouse gases in the atmosphere during the last few decades has warmed up the atmosphere, a phenomena popularly known as ‘global warming’. There are people who believe that ‘global warming’ does not exist, or will have negligible consequences on the earth and its biosphere, if at all it exists. Satellite record over the past few decades have shown a slight cooling trend in the lower troposphere, casting a doubt on the existence of ‘global warming’. During the same time, atmosphere near earth’s surface has shown a warming trend. Efforts are on to explain this temperature anomaly and it may take time to say conclusively whether ‘global warming’ exists or not.     

Heuristic Diagrams as a Tool to Teach History of Science

The graphic organizer called here heuristic diagram as an improvement of Gowin’s Vee heuristic is proposed as a tool to teach history of science. Heuristic diagrams have the purpose of helping students (or teachers, or researchers) to understand their own research considering that asks and problem-solving are central to scientific activity. The left side originally related in Gowin’s Vee with philosophies, theories, models, laws or regularities now agrees with Toulmin’s concepts (language, models as representation techniques and application procedures). Mexican science teachers without experience in science education research used the heuristic diagram to learn about the history of chemistry considering also in the left side two different historical times: past and present. Through a semantic differential scale teachers’ attitude to the heuristic diagram was evaluated and its usefulness was demonstrated.     

Rethinking historical and cultural source of spontaneous mental models of water cycle: in the perspective of South Korea

This review explores Ben-Zvi Assaraf, Eshach, Orion, and Alamour’s paper titled “Cultural Differences and Students’ Spontaneous Models of the Water Cycle: A Case Study of Jewish and Bedouin Children in Israel” by examining how the authors use the concept of spontaneous mental models to explain cultural knowledge source of Bedouin children’s mental model of water compared to Jewish children’s mental model of water in nature. My response to Ben-Zvi Assaraf et al.’s work expands upon their explanations of the Bedouin children’s cultural knowledge source. Bedouin children’s mental model is based on their culture, religion, place of living and everyday life practices related to water. I suggest a different knowledge source for spontaneous mental model of water in nature based on unique history and traditions of South Korea where people think of water in nature in different ways. This forum also addresses how western science dominates South Korean science curriculum and ways of assessing students’ conceptual understanding of scientific concepts. Additionally I argue that western science curriculum models could diminish Korean students’ understanding of natural world which are based on Korean cultural ways of thinking about the natural world. Finally, I also suggest two different ways of considering this unique knowledge source for a more culturally relevant teaching Earth system education.     

On Wonderful Machines: The Transmission of Mechanical Knowledge by Jesuits*

This paper attempts to draw attention to non-conventional but popular modes of transmitting scientific knowledge in Jesuit institutions in the 17th century. The particular case study focuses on a fictive dialogue between Galileo, Mersenne and Paulus Guldin on the power needed for moving the huge globe of the earth by mechanical means. The dialogue was written by a Jesuit mathematician named Paolo Casati (1617–1707) and published in 1655. Apparently, Casati offers his readers an idealized representation of a real event that took place at the Collegio Romano, where explanation of mathematical problems in a kind of public ritual used to take place once or twice a month in presence of philosophers, theologians, visitors and students. My analysis of some parts of Casati’s Terra Machinis Mota exemplifies the Jesuits’ success to accommodate the project of Renaissance practical mathematicians – the fusion of the pseudo-Aristotelian interest in machines with the mathematical approach of Archimedes – to the framework of the traditional mixed mathematical science that legitimized it and spread it among wide audiences. Casati’s text demonstrates how at least some Jesuit mathematicians were ready to adopt Galileo’s early mechanical project. However, moving from an analysis of the contents of mechanical knowledge popularized in this text to its analysis on the rhetorical level reveals the unbearable tensions by which Jesuit scientific culture was actually torn. The rhetorical choice to construct a representation of a seemingly friendly dialogue between the quasi-heretic Galileo, the Minim friar Mersenne and the suspected character of the Jesuit Guldin reveals the strategies by which Galileo’s heretic image was tamed in order to fit the Jesuits’ needs to construct themselves an enlightened public image. *Many thanks to Dr. Ido Yavetz, Professor Sabetai Unguru and Mr. Daniel Spitzer, who have read earlier versions of my paper and helped me clarify both the text I was trying to interpret and my own thoughts about it.     

A review of Catherine Milne��s book, The Invention of Science

Catherine Milne’s book, The Invention of Science, recounts the history of science (mainly Eurocentric) from cross-cultural, historical and philosophical worldviews. Scientists, science educators, and teachers would find this an interesting book, not only for themselves but also for those with whom they interact. Most accounts are of the great men in science with some to women in science, including reference to the exclusion of women from science. Milne provides thought-provoking activities to use in the classroom, like asking students to write the processes that occur when sugar dissolves in hot tea, with students including the three components of causal explanation. She also encourages teachers to use narratives to help students learn the context of discovery in science. In a comparison of analogical, deductive, inductive and abductive reasoning, she encourages teachers to pay attention to dialogical arguments. Book review author predicts that Milne’s book will fit well with the nation’s next generation science standards, still in development form. Milne succeeded in her goal “to combine aspects of the philosophy and history; not just to focus on specific scientific ideas but to provide a hint of the complex relationship between place and history, space and time, in the development of Eurocentric science.”     

Cognitive theories as reinforcement history surrogates: The case of likelihood ratio models of human recognition memory

B. F. Skinner (1977) once argued that cognitive theories are essentially surrogates for the organism’s (usually unknown) reinforcement history. In this article, we argue that this notion applies rather directly to a class of likelihood ratio models of human recognition memory. The point is not that such models are fundamentally flawed or that they are not useful and should be abandoned. Instead, the point is that the role of reinforcement history in shaping memory decisions could help to explain what otherwise must be explained by assuming that subjects are inexplicably endowed with the relevant distributional information and computational abilities. To the degree that a role for an organism’s reinforcement history is appreciated, the importance of animal memory research in understanding human memory comes into clearer focus. As Skinner was also fond of pointing out, it is only in the animal laboratory that an organism’s history of reinforcement can be precisely controlled and its effects on behavior clearly understood.     

Ernst Mach, George Sarton and the Empiry of Teaching Science Part I

George Sarton had a strong influence on modern history of science. The method he pursued throughout his life was the method he had discovered in Ernst Mach’s Mechanics when he was a student in Ghent. Sarton was in fact throughout his life implementing a research program inspired by the epistemology of Mach. Sarton in turn inspired many others (James Conant, Thomas Kuhn, Gerald Holton, etc.). What were the origins of these ideas in Mach and what can this origin tell us about the history of science and science education nowadays? Which ideas proved to be successful and which ones need to be improved upon? The following article will elaborate the epistemological questions, which Darwin’s “Origin” raised concerning human knowledge and scientific knowledge and which led Mach to adapt the concept of what is “empirical” in contrast to metaphysical a priori assumptions a second time after Galileo. On this basis Sarton proposed “genesis and development” as the major goal of Isis. Mach had elaborated this epistemology in La Connaissance et l’Erreur (Knowledge and Error), which Sarton read in 1913 (Hiebert 1905/1976; de Mey 1984). Accordingly for Sarton, history becomes not only a subject of science, but a method of science education. Culture—and science as part of culture—is a result of a genetic process. History of science shapes and is shaped by science and science education in a reciprocal process. Its epistemology needs to be adapted to scientific facts and the philosophy of science. Sarton was well aware of the need to develop the history of science and the philosophy of science along the lines of this reciprocal process. It was a very fruitful basis, but a specific part of it, Sarton did not elaborate further, namely the psychology of science education. This proved to be a crucial missing element for all of science education in Sarton’s succession, especially in the US. Looking again at the origins of the central questions in the thinking of Mach, which provided the basis and gave rise to Sarton’s research program, will help in resolving current epistemic and methodological difficulties, contradictions and impasses in science education influenced by Sarton. The difficulties in science education will prevail as long as the omissions from their Machian origins are not systematically recovered and reintegrated.     

Developing Ideas of Refraction, Lenses and Rainbow Through the Use of Historical Resources

The paper examines different ways of using historical resources in teaching refraction related subjects. Experimental procedures can be taught by using Ptolemy’s and Al Haytham’s methods. The student can check the validity of the approximations or rules which were presented by different people. The interpretation of the relations is another subject. Refraction phenomena were interpreted either by the principle of least time or by particles or by waves. The law of refraction can be used as an example of a law which was discovered but put aside. The use of the law to construct lenses can be seen in Ibn Sahl’s hyperbolical lenses. Al Farisi’s method of “cones” is used for the interpretation of the rainbow. Al Farisi’s model was discovered again by Descartes. These models were not able to explain the supernumerary arcs. For this reason a simple wave model is presented. The models proposed by Al Haytham of atmospheric refraction can be used to show that refraction actually cannot be considered as the cause of the change of the size of the moon. Finally Huygens model of refraction in the atmosphere is used to introduce the wave fronts as more fundamental than rays.     

What ‘ideas-about-science’ should be taught in school science? A chemistry teachers’ perspective

The objective of this study is to facilitate in-service chemistry teachers’ understanding of nature of science and what ‘ideas-about-science’ can be included in the classroom. The study is based on 17 in-service teachers who had registered for a 11-week course on ‘Epistemology of Science Teaching’ as part of their Master’s degree program. The course is based on 17 readings drawing on nature of science and its critical evaluation. Course activities included written reports, classroom discussions based on participants’ presentations and written exams. Based on the results obtained this study has the following educational implications: (a) Experimental data need to be interpreted carefully due to underdetermination of theories by data; (b) Kuhn’s normal science manifests itself in the science curriculum through the scientific method and wields considerable influence; (c) Trilemma posed by Collins (Stud Sci Educ 35:169–173, 2000), viz., creation of new knowledge ⇔ Kuhn’s normal science ⇔ teaching nature of science, provided a big challenge and was thought provoking; (d) Of the different aspects of nature of science suggested by experts, these teachers endorsed the following as most important: Creativity, Historical development of scientific knowledge, Diversity of scientific thinking and Scientific method and critical testing; (e) With respect to the contradiction between the positions of Lederman et al. (J Res Sci Teach 39:497–521, 2002) and Osborne et al. (J Res Sci Teach 40:692–720, 2003), few supported the position of latter, viz., inclusion of scientific method in the classroom and a majority supported the former, viz., scientific method as a myth; and (f) Participants were critical of the present stage of research with respect to the scientific method and suggested the introduction of history, philosophy and epistemology of science to counteract its influence.     

Employing genetic ‘moments’ in the history of mathematics in classroom activities

The integration of history into educational practice can lead to the development of activities through the use of genetic ‘moments’ in the history of mathematics. In the present paper, we utilize Oresme’s genetic ideas – developed during the fourteenth century, including ideas on the velocity–time graphical representation as well as geometric transformations and reconfigurations – to develop mathematical models that can be employed for the solution of problems relating to linear motion. The representation of distance covered as the area of the figure between the graph of velocity and the time axis employed in these activities, leads on naturally to the study of problems on motion by means of functions, as well as allowing for the use of tools (concepts and propositions) from Euclidean geometry of relevance to such problems. By employing simple geometric transformations, equivalent real life problems are obtained which lead, in turn, to a simple classification of all linear motion-related problems. When applied to a wider range of motion problems, this approach prepares the way for the introduction of basic Calculus concepts (such as integral, derivative and their interrelation); in fact, we would argue that it could be beneficial to teach the basic concepts and results of Calculus from an early grade by employing natural extensions of the teaching methods considered in this paper.     

Multiple Outcomes of Class Visits to Natural History Museums: The Students’ View

The purpose of this study was to describe and understand the range of outcomes of class visits to natural history museums. The theoretical framework is based on the multifaceted process of learning in free choice learning environments, and emphasizes the unique and individual learning experience in museum settings. The study’s significance is in highlighting several possible cognitive as well as non-cognitive learning effects in museums class visits, by providing the student’s point of view. Data was collected by semi-structured interviews with 50 students in grades 6–8 on the day following the visit. We present evidence that students expressed several learning outcomes, connected directly and indirectly to the scientific content of the visit. Content oriented outcomes included acquiring scientific knowledge and making connections to prior knowledge; social oriented outcomes were identified in students’ statements regarding communicating knowledge and social aspects of learning; and interest oriented outcomes were evidenced by students’ expressions about emotions, interest and curiosity. The aggregate data addressed the common outcomes and the impact of class visits to natural history museums in the short term. Comparisons between two types of museums show significant differences in several aspects, regarding the exhibit and/or the activity type. Practical ideas for structuring the ultimate experience are included.     

Historical Objections Against the Number Line

Historical studies on the development of mathematical concepts will help mathematics teachers to relate their students’ difficulties in understanding to conceptual problems in the history of mathematics. We argue that one popular tool for teaching about numbers, the number line, may not be fit for early teaching of operations involving negative numbers. Our arguments are drawn from the many discussions on negative numbers during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries from philosophers and mathematicians such as Arnauld, Leibniz, Wallis, Euler and d’Alembert. Not only does division by negative numbers pose problems for the number line, but even the very idea of quantities smaller than nothing has been challenged. Drawing lessons from the history of mathematics, we argue for the introduction of negative numbers in education within the context of symbolic operations.     

Introducing the History of Science at the French Middle School

In scientific teaching, especially in physics and chemistry, some historical aspects have been introduced at the secondary level in France, since 1993. Particularly, in 2007, the syllabuses of 11′–15′ years old level (collège) propose precise activities in history of science and technology. Detailed guidance has been distributed in official ministerial literature. The invention of Volta’s battery in 1800 is one of the examples proposed, which is detailed here.     

The Handicap Principle

The Handicap Principle is an idea proposed by the husband and wife scientist team of Amotz and Avishag Zahavi from Israel in the 1970’s. It is among the most innovative ideas of the 20th century in the field of behavioural biology and attempts to explain several long-standing puzzles that have baffled naturalists since the time of Darwin. Although the theory was initially met with scepticism by the scientific community, with time and with sophisticated mathematical modelling it has now gained wider acceptance. In the book explaining their idea, the authors discuss various observations of animal behaviour in the wild and suggest how these can be explained using the handicap principle. Both experiments and long-time observations of animal behaviour fit in smoothly with the authors’ hypotheses for the most part. In this article I discuss the concept of the handicap principle and its application to various biological phenomena.     

Ethics or Morals: Understanding Students’ Values Related to Genetic Tests on Humans

To make meaning of scientific knowledge in such a way that concepts and values of the life-world are not threatened is difficult for students and laymen. Ethics and morals pertaining to the use of genetic tests for hereditary diseases have been investigated and discussed by educators, anthropologists, medical doctors and philosophers giving, at least in part, diverging results. This study investigates how students explain and understand their argumentation about dilemmas concerning gene testing for the purpose to reduce hereditary diseases. Thirteen students were interviewed about their views on this issue. Qualitative analysis was done primarily by relating students’ argumentation to their movements between ethics and morals as opposing poles. Students used either objective or subjective knowledge but had difficulties to integrate them. They tried to negotiate ethic arguments using utilitarian motives and medical knowledge with sympathy or irrational and personal arguments. They discussed the embryo’s moral status to decide if it was replaceable in a social group or not. The educational implications of the students’ use of knowledge in personal arguments are discussed.     

Post-Secondary Students’ Relationship to People They Consider to Be Scientific Experts

This article is situated in contemporary debates about the ways to achieve a scientific literacy that encourages a greater lay participation in public debates and political decision making. Drawing on the notion of “relationship to scientific experts” (in French, “rapport aux experts scientifiques”), I explore the ways in which a group of 3 Quebec post-secondary students describe the relationships they hold toward people whom they consider to be scientific experts, as revealed during a project in which they investigated the controversy surrounding cellular telephone use. To this end, I scrutinize how the members of the group go about describing scientific experts and picture a prospective face-to-face discussion with a scientific expert. The data come from a case study (conducted over a 15-week period). The findings show that the group maintains a relationship of intimidation by scientific experts, in which the latter are depicted in terms of their knowledge and qualifications. Accordingly, the group was overawed not only by the accumulation of knowledge held and produced by scientific experts but also by the latter’s research experience and the high social recognition they occasionally enjoyed. Similarly, the group describes a prospective face-to-face discussion with a doctor or a researcher in terms of an impersonal, intimidating encounter during which its members’ learning and comprehension in relation to the controversy are assumed to be unequal to the task. The implications of the findings for future research are discussed.     

A view of the tip of the iceberg: revisiting conceptual continuities and their implications for science learning

This project explores conceptual continuity as a framework for understanding students’ native ways of understanding and describing. Conceptual continuity suggests that the relationship between the use of words in one genre and the scientific genre can exist at varying levels of association. This perspective can reveal the varied relationships between ideas explained in everyday or vernacular genres and their association to scientific explanations. We conducted a 2-year study involving 15 high school baseball players’ understanding of the physics involved in baseball. First, we conducted a quantitative assessment of their science understanding by administering a test prior to season one (2006) and season two (2007). Second, we examined the types of linguistic resources students used to explain their understanding. Third, we revisited our data by using conceptual continuity to identify similarities between students’ conceptual understanding in the informal contexts and their similarities to canonical scientific ideas. The results indicated students’ performance on the multiple-choice questions suggested no significant improvement. The qualitative analyses revealed that students were able to accurately explain different components of the idea by using a diversity of scientific and non-scientific genres. These results call attention to the need to reconstruct our vision of science learning to include a more language sensitive approach to teaching and learning.     

Heterogeneous performances of conceptual dis/continuity: a dialectic reading of Brown and Kloser’s article

We review Brown and Kloser’s article, “Conceptual continuity and the science of baseball: using informal science literacy to promote students science learning” from a Vygotskian cultural-historical and dialectic perspective. Brown and Kloser interpret interview data with student baseball players and claim that students’ conceptual understanding articulated in vernacular genres involves continuities (similarities) with the canonical scientific explanations. In this commentary, we suggest that the authors’ approach presupposes the dichotomy of the formal and the informal, which brings the authors’ attention to continuity into the separation of cognition from language. We propose a Vygotskian approach that points out the problem of theorizing cognition (conceptual understanding) by depending on specific forms of representation (e.g., scientific terms). As alternative, we envision a Vygotskian cultural-historical approach to language, which considers different, irreducible modes of communication as an integrated whole and therefore allows theorizing cognition without dichotomizing it from the concrete ways by which human being communicates. We provide an exemplary analysis of a lecture talk in a university physics classroom and exemplify dialectic theories that explain the development of conceptual understanding. We discuss that this Vygotskian dialectic approach shows that people communicate scientific concepts through hybridization, which does not reproduce a genre self-identically; the continuity of conceptual understanding involves dis/continuity.     

Dyslexia and psychodynamics: A case study of a dyslexic adult

The interaction between dyslexia and its secondary emotional problems, especially those arising from unproductive defenses, is illustrated in the history and successful treatment of an adult dyslexic male. At the start of treatment, the 33-year-old subject was illiterate, despite an average IQ and a history of many previous educational and therapeutic interventions. Psychological problems, including low self-esteem, alcohol abuse, temper outbursts, and poor relationships with women were seen as largely secondary to the subject’s learning problem. A review of the treatment, consisting of remediation concurrent with psychodynamic psychotherapy, reveals specific ways in which these emotional problems hindered educational efforts, as well as ways in which their exploration and resolution in psychotherapy helped the remediation. Similarly, ways in which the subject’s learning problem contributed to the development of his emotional problems are discussed. Finally, with reference to the psychoanalytic concept of sublimation, the relationship between improvement in the subject’s reading skill and improvement in his impulse control is described.