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…

This study investigates whether graduate courses for in-service physics teacher professional development that combine the conceptual history of physics, physics content, and physics education research readings will result in the teachers using the history of science for their own classroom instruction. In a study conducted in the USA, teachers who…

We describe an educational activity that can be completed with mobile media devices in order to understand the working principle of a pair of tuning forks, from the Historical Collection of Physics Instruments of the University of Palermo, and how they were used to explain acoustic interference and beats with the Lissajous optical method. This…

Metabolism is a challenging subject for bioscience students due to the intrinsic complexity of the metabolic network, as well as that of the overlapping mechanisms of metabolic regulation. Collaborative learning based on a problem-based learning approach can help students to successfully learn and understand metabolism. In the present article, we…

The past decade has been marked by a series of global crises, presenting an opportunity to reevaluate the relationship between science and politics. The biological sciences are instrumental in understanding natural phenomena and informing policy decisions. However, scholars argue that current scientific expertise often fails to account for entire…

This article introduces and contextualizes the content of this theme issue of "The American Biology Teacher" (ABT), which focuses on integrating elements of the history of science (HOS) in biology instruction. Such orientations can enhance students' understanding of core biological concepts and the process of scientific discovery by…

The field of Kinesiology has grown over the centuries from a discipline primarily focused on sport to one that includes a more scientific focus, leading to an increase in scholarship and research. This study provides an overview of Kinesiology's history, highlighting the connection between African and the Greek Philosophers that paved the way for…

For some scientific ideas, it is obvious to pupils as to why they are studied. For others, a bit more work is needed before their significance becomes apparent. The concept of 'historical significance', which is used in history teaching, can help children to appreciate the enduring importance of scientific discoveries and events. The pedagogic…

This article was inspired by two of Gemma Turley's greatest passions, science and history, and demonstrates how exploring the history of scientists and scientific discovery in primary schools can support teaching of primary science. Herein she explains how educators can use the history of science to highlight to children that science is a career…