The history of physics and European physics education

In the last fifteen years a small group of European physicists has been working towards an approach to physics education based on the actual practices of physics research. The standard presentation through traditional textbooks plus didactic laboratory is rejected, and instead case studies contributing and borrowing from contemporary history, philosophy and sociology of science are provided. Analysis of original papers, scientific debates, institutional settings are often accompanied by reconstructions of important historical instruments. The resulting interplay between theories, instruments and experimental results offers a view of physics fascinating and entertaining, closer to the actual scientists' activities, deprived of many traditional ideological assumptions, open to the students interpretations and often in tune with contemporary findings of science educators. The group's activities are quietly flourishing, have acquired institutional recognition in the European Physical Society, and are now coordinated with the ones organized around the journal Science & Education and the International History, Philosophy and Science Teaching Group.