Towards a Refined Depiction of Nature of Science

Science & Education - This study considers the short list of Nature of Science (NOS) features frequently published and widely known in the science education discourse. It is argued that these...     

Learning Electricity in Elementary School

The study investigated elementary school pupils' ideas concerning the concept of electricity and the effect of school instruction on the pupil's views. Pupils of different cultural backgrounds were assessed to ascertain their knowledge in four areas: Relation of certain natural phenomena to electricity; Mental models (images) of direct current in a circuit; Images possessed regarding electricity and electric current. Pupils' ideas were investigated before and after instruction, thus providing information about the effect of instruction on the views of pupils. In construct to the previous findings, certain phenomena (lightning and thunder among them) were related by the pupils to electricity even before those were taught. Evidently, the instruction changed the mental models and images of electricity and electric current.     

On the Power of Fine Arts Pictorial Imagery in Science Education

The paper describes and illustrates the potential of using pictorial artistic images in supporting teaching scientific concepts and the nature of science. In the first part, the case of Giotto’s fresco of stigmatization of St. Francis is described within the interpretation of relationship between the figures as between an object and its mirror image. Educational implications of this case study are suggested. The second part presents several pictorial images that can be used in classroom teaching of science for facilitation of hermeneutic discussion in science classes addressing the nature of scientific knowledge changed in the course of history.     

The Effect of a History-Based Course in Optics on Students' Views about Science

In light of the convincing claims extolling the multifaceted merit of the “genetic” (historical) approach in designing learning materials (Matthews 1994), we developed an experimental course in optics. We tested the new materials and determined their effectiveness in a year long course given in several 10th grade high school classes. A special feature, which soundly contrasted our course from a typical one, was its essential incorporation of historical contents: the ideas, views and conceptions which constituted the early understanding of light and vision. In this report, we present that part of the assessment which concerns the course's impact on the students’ views about science and some related technological and cultural issues. In our analysis, we used a special hierarchical organization to represent pertinent data. Strong differences were found between the views elicited in the experimental group and parallel data regarding students in the control group. In our view, this demonstrated the advantage of utilizing historical materials in an aspect which is additional to our first intention – to improve students’ disciplinary knowledge. Such materials naturally address issues of much broader general interest, appropriate for physics education as opposed to physics training. Touching on a variety of features of science the materialspositively effect students’ views about science.