The nature of science is a primary goal in school science. Most teachers are not well-prepared for teaching NOS, but a sophisticated and in-depth understanding of NOS is necessary for effective teaching. Some authors emphasize the need for teaching NOS in context. Species, a central concept in biology, is proposed in this article as a concrete example of a means for achieving increased understanding of NOS. Although species are commonly presented in textbooks as fixed entities with a single definition, the (...) concept of species is a highly discussed one in the science and the philosophy of biology. A multitude of species concepts exist, reflecting both the views and interests of researchers and their utility in different organism groups. The present study serves to address the following questions: How do textbooks in Norwegian primary and lower secondary schools present the concept of species? Can inquiries into the concept of “species” serve to highlight aspects of NOS? A review of the available literature on species and species concepts in school is also performed. In the schoolbooks, the biological species concept is commonly used as the main definition, whereas the morphological species concept is represented by additional remarks of similarity. The potential and pitfalls of using the species concept for teaching NOS are discussed, with NOS being discussed both as a family resemblance concept and as a consensus list. Teacher education is proposed as a starting point for inducing a more sophisticated view of biology into schools. (shrink)

The interest to connect results of neuroscientific research to educational contexts has increasingly grown in recent years. Actors from neuroscience and education show the explicit intention to approach each other. Still, issues and debates exist in the relation between them. This paper aims to bring to the fore one such specific issue that is not only relevant to be mindful of, but also raises questions of an organisational and pedagogical nature. The issue concerns the possible occurrences of conceptual confusion on (...) the bridge from neuroscience to education. I present this paper as a thought experiment that hopes to make public not only the respective issue, but also some of its related questions, such as ‘neuroprofessionalisation’ and ‘relevant knowledge for educational actors’. In doing so, I attempt to make the issue and its questions a concern of ours, and invite readers to join in a collective and vivid conversation about it. (shrink)