The problem here dealt with concerns physics education, and specifically the concept of force. The idea behind this research is that a historical approach to the teaching of such a notion is of great help for the students to fully understand the meaning of this basic physical magnitude. For, most of scientific concepts can be better grasped by the…

Interdisciplinary studies can create synergy across various fields, allowing for knowledge in a previously specialized area to support other disciplines. A number of scientific theories and laws have been applied in other domains to explain the latter's phenomenon; the adaptation of Newton's Gravitational Law for studies of bilateral trade,…

Nine years after reconceptualizing the nature of science for science education using the family resemblance approach (FRA) (Erduran & Dagher, 2014a), the time is ripe for taking stock of what this approach has accomplished, and what future research it can facilitate. This reflective paper aims to accomplish three goals. The first addresses…

Astronomy has great potential to attract children toward science and improve their scientific literacy. However, it has a relatively small presence within the school curricula worldwide. In Chile, home of the world's largest telescopes, astronomy is even more relevant in science education, but the presence of astronomical content within the…

The notion of family resemblance has recently emerged as a promising and fruitful approach to characterising the nature of science (NOS) in science education research, offering solutions to some perplexing challenges such as capturing both the domain-general and domain-specific features of science with a single framework. At the same time,…

Over the last two decades, the growth and development of the fields of Dance Science and Pedagogy, as practice, research and area of study, has changed the landscape of 21st Century training and performance. The aim of this paper is to stimulate thinking and initiate dialogue between practitioners and academics in the exploration of new solutions…

As introductory chemistry courses expose students to many distinctive properties of matter, it is helpful to systematically evaluate and relate different measures such as mass, moles, and molarity, or specific heat capacity and heat capacity. Intensive and extensive designations help distinguish intrinsic and component properties of a system and…

Biological organisms function as the result of a multitude of complex physical systems all interacting with one another at different length scales and over different time scales. At stages of education below university undergraduate level, this complexity often prevents the discussion of physics within a biological context, subtly implying that…

This article aims to analyze the potential of new technologies in the area of green chemistry didactics. When viewed through the lens of systems thinking, the use of these ubiquitous tools can be a driving force for the development of a sustainable world because of their global use and reach. The authors concentrate on flat e-learning platforms,…

Hands-on experiences are excellent tools for increasing retention of first year engineering students. They also encourage interdisciplinary collaboration, a critical skill for modern engineers. In this paper, we describe and evaluate a joint Chemical and Materials Engineering hands-on lab that explores cross-linking and glass transition in…

Applying physical principles is important for designs of various products with tailored performances. However, one of the long-standing issues of the students' design projects (or school's interdisciplinary projects) is the post-hoc imposition of the knowledge learned in their content subjects. This post-hoc imposition significantly diminishes the…

Community-campus engagement (CCE) offers transformative opportunities for collaborative knowledge creation. Over the last few decades, thoughtful energy has gone into identifying the parts of a CCE and then developing tools to study these parts, with discrete focus on community groups, students, and faculty. Bringing a complexity science approach…

For 12 years, Denise Gillman has taught the course Science on the Stage at Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Virginia. The plays studied awaken intellectual curiosity and understanding of human nature and complex scientific ideas within the framework of a good story and can do so for students of every major. This article presents how…

Many students regard physics as an isolated, sophisticated and perhaps a boring branch of science. Meanwhile, physics is embedded in most events and issues of society, culture and everyday life. To find and include such relevant contexts is one of the challenges for every physics teacher. Here we present our findings, which concern the classic…

In this commentary, I build on recent interdisciplinary models for embodied cognition with additional perspectives from affective neuroscience, educational psychology, creativity theory, and science education. I invoke William James and John Dewey, pioneers of an embodied philosophy of mind, alongside recent affective neuroscience theory about the…