An alternative to insert history of science (HS) in teacher formation programs is the use of concept maps (CM), which may be very useful to represent the historical elaboration dimension of science concepts, laws, and principles. This paper presents the results of a study that identifies the conceptions of pre-service physics teachers about the…

Herbaria, collections of preserved plant specimens, have existed for 500 years as repositories of information about plants. Many of these collections are now being digitized, making them available to a much broader audience including students and teachers. Specimens can be used in a variety of different contexts in teaching biology, including from…

Potassium is the main intracellular ion in prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells and is essential for their functions, making potassium one of the most important electrolytes in physiology. In humans, potassium plays a vital role in several physiological functions, including the maintenance of fluid balance, generating the membrane potential of cells,…

"Makerspaces, Innovation and Science Education: How, Why, and What For?" is an attempt to interrogate questions about the history, philosophy, and sociology of science and schooling that have long troubled science educators. In crafting the book, the author, Michael Tan, uses the microcosm of makerspaces to move back and forth to…

The five papers published by Hodgkin and Huxley in 1952 are seminal works in the field of physiology, earning their authors the Nobel Prize in 1963 and ushering in the era of membrane biophysics. The papers present a considerable challenge to the novice student, but this has been partly allayed by recent publications that have updated the…

Old physics textbooks give us a great opportunity to learn about the history of science and rediscover different methods to teach physics to our students. There are many disused and forgotten experiments in them, but these can still be very useful to affirm and understand physics. This is the case of an instrument used in the 19th century to…

Background: In the previous decades many research papers and educational documents have emphasized the importance of the application of history of science in the science education of students. Consequently, chemistry teachers are expected to be familiar with the historical development of science and capable of incorporating historical contents in…

Joseph Priestley, discoverer of oxygen, lived in Nantwich, Cheshire, UK, from 1758 to 1761. In 2019, an exhibition featuring his life and achievements, and also celebrating the International Year of the Periodic Table, was developed by the Nantwich Museum. The historical research of Priestley's life, development of the exhibition, and rationale…

The Wright brothers, Wilbur and Orville, are often depicted as lone geniuses, secretly assembling the first successful powered aircraft far from civilization at Kitty Hawk on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. There is a germ of truth in the popular story, but only a germ. The brothers succeeded while so many other experimenters failed not because…

The objective of this second part of the work is to present heuristic derivations of the three classical tests of general relativity. These derivations are based on the Einstein equivalence principle and use Newtonian physics as a theoretical framework. The results obtained are close to Einstein's original predictions. Historical and anecdotal…

Scholars over the past few years have drawn attention to the enormous potential role historical stories can play in promoting student understanding of issues associated with the nature of science (NOS). Such stories, often referred to as "historical narratives," are thought to do so by providing a rich historical context within which…

Written as a letter to Galileo, an education graduate student narrates from course experiences that deepened her understandings of Galileo and natural and intellectual properties underlying his works. Having taken the Galileo-themed course with Elizabeth Cavicchi at MIT's Edgerton Center in three prior terms, on taking it a fourth time, this…

Background: Science history is a discipline that teaches the development of scientific thought and the discoveries of scientists. However, these topics can sometimes be abstract and difficult to understand. The use of technology can make the teaching of the history of science more effective, engaging, and accessible. By providing students with…

Should we, and how do we, develop in our students a sense of period -- or a series of senses of period -- in a thematic study spanning a thousand years? This was the problem faced by Matthew Fearns-Davies in preparing for the GCSE 'Health and the People' paper. He shows in this article the ways in which he considered the problem of chronological…

This research aimed to lay bare pre-service teachers' experience of History and Philosophy of Science courses. Being a phenomenological design, this research has 19 pre-service teachers (age range 19-22 years; 10 male, 9 female) in its research group. Semi-structured interviews were used to collect data for the study. Seven open-ended questions…