The French natural philosopher Henri Victor Regnault (1810-1878) was one of many researchers who contributed to the development of the thermometer in the 19th century. In this paper, we use an example from Regnault's work to explore how the history of thermometry can provide a context for teaching upper-secondary chemistry students about the…

Researchers of science education, historians, and philosophers of science agree that the teaching of nature of science (NOS) is important to be integrated into K-12 classes. Our previous research showed that NOS is not embedded into science teaching in Greece. To study the possibility of its integration, a PD-program for in-service science…

In high school, and also in introductory physics courses in higher levels of schooling, the law of universal gravitation of planets is introduced by postulating Johannes Kepler's three laws, and later Isaac Newton's law of the inverse of the square of the distance to the Sun. The justification of the laws is only achieved in advanced courses in…

This study aims to determine the knowledge levels in the Nature and History of Science course of the prospective teachers studying in the science education program and their views following the course. Six interview questions were asked to the pre-service teachers in the science education program about the Nature and History of Science course.…

Concepts related to the nature of science (NOS) have been considered an important part of scientific literacy as reflected in its inclusion in curriculum documents. A significant amount of science education research has focused on improving learners' understanding of NOS. One approach that has often been advocated is an "explicit and…

An interdisciplinary approach to science education through history of art is proposed. The approach is innovative, as the artworks complement the history, philosophy and sociology of science contents to increase students' interest and motivation. The approach integrates humanities and science education through history of art, which requests…

We propose explicit and implicit approaches for the teaching of acid-base chemistry based on research into the history and nature of science (NoS). To support these instructional proposals, we identify four rationales for students to understand acid-base processes: daily life, socio-scientific, curriculum, and history of science. The extensive…

Teaching false theories goes against the general pedagogical and philosophical belief that we must only teach and learn what is true. In general, the goal of pedagogy is taken to be epistemic: to gain knowledge and avoid ignorance. In this article, I argue that for realists and antirealists alike, epistemological and pedagogical goals have to come…

Helping students understand that the scientific community's claims change through time, sometimes radically, allows them to develop a well-grounded sense of the "nature of science." Learning to reason about how scientific claims come to be accepted, and later refuted, is important for understanding the tentative nature of scientific…

Helping students understand the Nature of Science (NOS) is a long-standing goal of science education. One method is to provide students examples of science history in the form of short stories. This article modifies that approach, using historical case studies to address both the history of science and the history of technology, as well as the…

Physics textbooks often present items of disciplinary knowledge in a sequential order of topics of the theory under instruction. Such presentation is usually univocal, that is, isolated from alternative claims and contributions regarding the subject matter in the pertinent scientific discourse. We argue that comparing and contrasting the…

The phenomenon of industrial melanism (IM) became widely acknowledged as a well-documented example of natural selection largely as a result of H.B.D. Kettlewell's pioneering research on the subject in the early 1950s. It was quickly picked up by American biology textbooks starting in the early 1960s and became ubiquitous throughout the 1970s,…

Richard Feynman, the celebrated physicist, is frequently attributed as saying that "philosophy of science is about as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds. " Professor Feynman taught at the California Institute of Technology for many years, but perhaps this experience did not afford him the best view of the general level…

In this work, we present a teaching-learning sequence on colour intended to a pre-service elementary teacher programme informed by History and Philosophy of Science. Working in a socio-constructivist framework, we made an excursion on the history of colour. Our excursion through history of colour, as well as the reported misconception on colour…

Teaching about drawbridges allows students to apply skills they have learned in math and science, while also being creative with design and the use of available materials. Students can be exposed to current and ancient designs. Today's drawbridges are beginning to look their age and are in need of updating and modernization. New bridges are being…