This article presents a study aiming at assessing the efficacy of reading newspaper articles with scientific content in order to incorporate nature of science aspects in initial primary teacher education. To this aim, a short teaching intervention based on newspaper articles was planned and performed under regular class conditions. First, prospective teachers read two newspaper articles related to a recent and controversial scientific research report in the field of physics. Next, they responded reflectively in small groups to various questions related (...) to NOS aspects insinuated in the articles in order for researchers to diagnose their prior ideas about these. Each group then presented their responses in class, and a discussion among groups was encouraged in order to provide feedback. Based on this, the groups revised their initial responses. The evolution of the written responses of the groups was analyzed through an interpretive approach using the methods of inter-rater and intra-rater analysis and low-inference descriptors. The findings showed that these prospective teachers in general improved their NOS views. In the absence of further research, these first findings make evident the pedagogical potential of reading certain newspaper articles for learning about NOS under usual classroom conditions. Finally, some educational implications and perspectives derived from the study are discussed. (shrink)

In the last decades, a great amount of research has advocated innovating science education through teaching contents of the history, sociology, and philosophy of science in order for the students to get a reliable image of science, significant and relevant learning experiences, and higher interest and engagement in science. Given the embeddedness of techno-scientific systems in contemporary societies, the science-technology-society (STS) movement suggested the simple initiative of teaching science through making explicit the interrelationships between science, scientists, technology, and society to (...) achieve these aims. Since then, the STS tradition has evolved and produced some conceptual variations. This paper deals with three of these variations that are currently the key areas of school science education research and teaching: “socio-scientific issues,” “scientific literacy for all,” and “nature of science.” As heirs of the STS tradition, these mottos embody, at the same time, a clear continuity with STS origins, and some discontinuities, which arise from the development of their own paradigms, adding original elements to the STS movement. (shrink)

This chapter relates a broadly chronological story of the developments over the last 50 years that have sought to reshape the science curriculum in English schools by introducing aspects of the history of science and nature of science. The chapter highlights key curriculum projects by outlining the contexts in which they developed and summarising their rationales as set out in their publications. It also provides signposts to some of the reports of research and scholarship that have evaluated these initiatives. The (...) chapter shows how the first national curriculum in 1989 was influenced by earlier initiatives as it made teaching about the nature of science mandatory for all. This requirement faded into the background after a few years and then re-emerged with a new rationale as ‘how science works’ in 2004. The chapter ends by looking to the future with a discussion of a new course which contrasts with earlier traditions by focussing the teaching and learning on the history and philosophy of science rather than using ideas from these disciplines to teach about science. (shrink)