Physics Education PAPER • OPEN ACCESS Related content - Development of Lesson Plans and Student Working with the nature of science in physics Worksheets Based Socio-Scientific Issues on Pollution Environmental Topic class: turning ‘ordinary’ classroom situations into S Rahayu, M Meyliana, A Arlingga et al. - Recent advances in classroom physics nature of science learning situations Beth Ann Thacker - Learning to teach inquiry with ICT To cite this article: Lena Hansson and Lotta Leden 2016 Phys. Educ. 51 055001 Trinh-Ba Tran, Ed van den Berg, Ton Ellermeijer et al. Recent citations View the article online for updates and enhancements. - What’s inside the pink box? A nature of science activity for teachers and students Freek Pols - Upper Primary Students’ Views Vis-à-Vis Scientific Reasoning Progress Levels in Physics Tsedeke Abate et al - Lotta Leden and Lena Hansson This content was downloaded from IP address 170.106.33.14 on 24/09/2021 at 18:38 IOP Physics Education Phys. Educ. 51 P A P ERS Phys. Educ. 51 (2016) 055001 (6pp) iopscience.org/ped 2016 Working with the nature of © 2016 IOP Publishing Ltd science in physics class: turning PHEDA7 ‘ordinary’ classroom situations 055001 into nature of science learning L Hansson and L Leden situations Working with the nature of science in physics class Lena Hansson1,2 and Lotta Leden1,2 Printed in the UK 1 Swedish National Resource Centre for Physics Education, Lund University, Lund, Sweden 2 Kristianstad University, Kristianstad, Sweden PED E-mail: [email protected] 10.1088/0031-9120/51/5/055001 Abstract In the science education research field there is a large body of literature on 0031-9120 the ‘nature of science’ (NOS). NOS captures issues about what characterizes the research process as well as the scientific knowledge. Here we, in line with a broad body of literature, use a wide definition of NOS including also e.g. Published socio-cultural aspects. It is argued that NOS issues, for a number of reasons, should be included in the teaching of science/physics. Research shows that NOS should be taught explicitly. There are plenty of suggestions on specific September and separate NOS activities, but the necessity of discussing NOS issues in connection to specific science/physics content and to laboratory work, is also 5 highlighted. In this article we draw on this body of literature on NOS and science teaching, and discuss how classroom situations in secondary physics classes could be turned into NOS-learning situations. The discussed situations have been suggested by secondary teachers, during in-service teacher training, as situations from every-day physics teaching, from which NOS could be highlighted. 1. The relevance of ‘nature of science’ look like? What is the role of experiments? Is the perspectives for science/physics teaching research process objective and rational, or are there also subjective and creative elements? How How certain is scientific knowledge? How can can the relation between science and the sur- the relation between scientific models and nature rounding society be described? Are there limits be described? What does a research process for science, or will science in the future be able to answer all types of questions? These questions, Original content from this work may be used and many more, all deal with nature of science under the terms of the Creative Commons ‘ ’ Attribution 3.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work (NOS). Thus we use the concept of NOS in a must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the broad sense including also socio-cultural aspects work, journal citation and DOI. (see Lederman 2007, Erduran and Dagher 2014). 0031-9120/16/055001+6$33.00 1 © 2016 IOP Publishing Ltd L Hansson and L Leden The research field of science education has and despite its inclusion in curricula, there is no for a long time, and with numerous arguments, tradition working with NOS in the science class- advocated that these kinds of NOS perspectives room (Lederman 2007). Instead, science teach- should be included in science teaching (e.g. ing is still focused on what teachers speak about Lederman 2007, Hodson 2009, Matthews 2012). as ‘facts and labwork’ (Leden et al 2015), in Research shows that students often have views which broader perspectives on NOS are seldom about science that are too simplistic. McComas included. (1998) speaks about the presence of a number Among scholars, scientists as well as philos- of myths about science. Such myths include that ophers and sociologists, there are different views the researcher always uses one specific research of what characterizes science. However, regard- method—‘the scientific method’, that the research less of disagreements, and differences between process relies more on procedures than on creativ- scientific disciplines, there are suggestions from ity, and that scientific research is an entirely objec- different scholars of a number of NOS aspects or tive and universal enterprise (independent of the NOS categories that could be considered appro- researcher as well as of the surrounding society). priate for K-12 students (e.g. Osborne et al 2003, When the ‘scientific method’ is followed, accord- Lederman 2007, Erduran and Dagher 2014). ing to such a stereotypical picture, the research Such suggestions could function as guidelines for process results in absolute, objective facts about teachers. They can also, at least partly be viewed nature. These kinds of myths are reproduced in as a response to stereotypical and mythical pic- various situations, for example in school. tures of science, as well as an attempt to change The myths described above are not challenged these pictures. if the teaching only focuses on physics concepts and models, or through involving students in tra- ditional laboratory work, without also explicitly 2. Research on how to work with NOS in discussing what kind of enterprise science is (e.g. science/physics classes Lederman 2007). That is, NOS-learning does not There are roughly speaking two main ways sug- happen automatically, but has to be a learning goal gested in the research literature on how NOS that is planned for. The differences between the could be addressed during physics lessons—sepa- goals of learning science, learning to do science rate from or connected to specific physics/science and learning about science (NOS) is discussed by content. Separate NOS-activities could be a fruit- Hodson (2014); it can be difficult to have all three ful way to highlight specific issues, while teach- goals in focus all the time. ing NOS in connection to specific concepts and Today there is a great focus on teaching sci- models provide possibilities for NOS to become ence for citizenship (Hodson 2009). Also for this part of physics teaching not only during single reason NOS knowledge is of central importance, lessons. e.g. as a tool when interpreting media reports. The latter approach could be done through NOS knowledge could help students understand: addressing some NOS aspects in connection to: why knowledge sometimes changes while there laboratory work (especially when the laboratory also is a high credibility and certainty concern- work is designed more like authentic science (e.g. ing other knowledge, why researchers do not Yacoubian and BouJaoude 2010, Etkina, 2015); always agree on debated issues, and how the lim- historical examples (e.g. Höttecke et al 2012), its of science can be viewed upon. In addition to or when working with ‘socio-scientific issues’ these reasons for including NOS in science/physics (e.g. Eastwood et al 2012) often (but not always) teaching, research also shows that NOS teaching including frontier science. See Allchin et al (2014) can increase students’ interest in science, as well for a discussion of different approaches to NOS as contribute to a better understanding of con- teaching and how these could complement each cepts and models (e.g. Lederman 2007). other. In this way NOS becomes something that is NOS is part of science curricula in many discussed and learnt together with scientific con- countries, and has been so for more than a century cepts, models and procedures. (Jenkins 2013). However, despite research argu- Both ways of dealing with NOS (separate ing for an inclusion of NOS in science teaching, and in connection to other physics content) have September 2016 2 Physics Education Working with the nature of science in physics class benefits and constrains, and they could preferably that is decided on by humans; in this case defi- be used in combination (Clough 2006). However, nitions in astronomy are set by the International it is important not only to teach NOS as separate Astronomical Union (IAU). Definitions could activities, but also on the spur of the moment in always be made in different ways. The concept connection to specific physics/science concepts ‘planet’ was introduced by the ancient Greeks, and models (Nott and Wellington 1998, Herman but through history the meaning of the word has et al 2013). Such NOS teaching also makes it changed and included different objects at different possible to highlight the complexity of science times (Tignanelli and Benétreau-Dupin 2014). At (Clough 2006). the beginning of the 2100 century astronomers had Below we will discuss how NOS could be empirical data on more and more objects outside brought to the fore during ‘ordinary’ physics les- Neptune, which could all potentially be viewed as sons even if the main goal is not NOS learning. planets (Tignanelli and Benétreau-Dupin 2014). The situations discussed were collected in physics The need for a strict definition became more classrooms, by in-service science teachers, during and more apparent, and in 2006 a definition was a physics training course, and suggested by them set by IAU, by a majority vote (Tignanelli and as possible starting points for NOS discussions.