Presents the epistemology of scientific concepts from a schematic modeling perspective. Discusses students' initial cognitive states based on the level of commensurability between students' own concepts and their scientific counterparts. Contains 87 references. (DDR)

Presents a study designed to test the effectiveness of a constructivist-historical teaching strategy in changing students' misconceptions about the earth's shape and gravity at the upper elementary and middle school levels. Contains 27 references. (DDR)

Mentions a few signs of the value of history for science education. Discusses some of the wider benefits that might ensue from bringing history into science. Provides examples from the fields of physics and chemistry. (DDR)

Presents a theoretically grounded checklist developed for analyzing the historical content of science textbooks. Results of the analysis indicate that the checklist is able to reveal differences among textbooks. (Contains 65 references.) (DDR)

Examines some of the misconceptions about the nature of critical thinking. Focuses on the characterization of critical thinking in terms of processes or skills and the separation of critical thinking and knowledge. Offers a different conception of critical thinking. (Contains 46 references.) (DDR)

Addresses the problem of relating distance and scale by way of alternative models of perception taken from the history of science. Makes specific suggestions to broaden the scientifically-based actual activity zone of students. (Contains 19 references.) (DDR)

Discusses the debates surrounding multiculturalism both as a politics of recognition and as a proposed epistemic position in the context of science education. Concludes that there are no reasons for linking a multiculturalist approach to science education with a non-universalist approach to science. (Contains 21 references.) (DDR)

Addresses the tension that exists in the present reform movement in science education related to rigor and accountability. Points out that the tension is between standards, benchmarks, and high stakes testing on one hand, and student-centered approaches to teaching and learning on the other. (Contains 25 references.) (DDR)

Discusses philosophical arguments relevant to the question of teaching creationism, especially with regard to developments in the debate since the early 1990s. Considers what the relevant differences for the policy question for private, public schools, and home schoolers are. Discusses the main legal arguments that have ruled in the case of public…

Examines some key characteristics of science under the headings of elimination of the personal, demarcation from ethics, and denial of reflexivity. Relates these characteristics to an instrumental criterion of knowing which is pervasive in science. Suggests that there are severe limits to the introduction of a more personal, interpretative, and…

Discusses interactions between experimental systems and modes of interpretation. Uses the discovery of the 'base pairing principle' by Erwin Chargaff as an example to show how established laboratory routines and their development interact with the underlying theoretical framework and the 'Denkstil' (style of thought) of a collective of researchers…

Reviews efforts to humanize science education by including the history of science, and reviews the rationale for including the history of science in the science education curriculum. Synthesizes a conceptual framework for examining the role of the history of science in science education and uses the framework to examine the perceptions and…

Attempts to ascertain whether the presence of biasing values in the practice of science is an inbuilt feature of an idealized institution, Science, and judges that those values inbuilt to Science are not a source of bias. (Author/MM)

Describes generations and experiences of an exhibition presented in Spring 1998 at the Oldenburg Museum of Natural History and Pre-History. Discusses the thematic leitmotiv of this exhibition which was to present experiments from the history of physics as a cultural activity. Describes how reconstructions of historical experimental set-ups were…

Discusses the interaction of scientific knowledge and everyday human experience using a phenomenological framework that allows a picture of meaning constitution to emerge. Concludes that construction of a model of curriculum work on the levels of planning, implementation, and evaluation involves translation between the setting of everyday…