The French natural philosopher Henri Victor Regnault (1810-1878) was one of many researchers who contributed to the development of the thermometer in the 19th century. In this paper, we use an example from Regnault's work to explore how the history of thermometry can provide a context for teaching upper-secondary chemistry students about the…

Many physics learners take the specific mathematical representations they are using as part of their learning and doing physics for granted. The paper addresses this problem by highlighting two goals. The first is to show how a historical investigation from history of science can be transformed into a concrete lesson plan in physics, in a physics…

Science educators are increasingly using a historical approach to pedagogy as a way to enable students to understand the process of the construction of science in a more contextualized manner. Considering the meaning of context in a broader sense, this article has two objectives. First, it aims to explore how physics lessons using a Cultural…

We propose explicit and implicit approaches for the teaching of acid-base chemistry based on research into the history and nature of science (NoS). To support these instructional proposals, we identify four rationales for students to understand acid-base processes: daily life, socio-scientific, curriculum, and history of science. The extensive…

This multiple-case study examined the rationales and instructional strategies for teaching history of science (HOS) of 16 instructors of a history of science course for undergraduate preservice teachers in the USA. Based on instructor syllabi, instructional materials, and instructor interviews, we conducted single-case and cross-case analyses to…

Concepts related to the nature of science (NOS) have been considered an important part of scientific literacy as reflected in its inclusion in curriculum documents. A significant amount of science education research has focused on improving learners' understanding of NOS. One approach that has often been advocated is an "explicit and…

Teaching false theories goes against the general pedagogical and philosophical belief that we must only teach and learn what is true. In general, the goal of pedagogy is taken to be epistemic: to gain knowledge and avoid ignorance. In this article, I argue that for realists and antirealists alike, epistemological and pedagogical goals have to come…

A number of authors have recognized the importance of understanding the nature of science (NOS) for scientific literacy. Different instructional strategies such as decontextualized, hands-on inquiry, and history of science (HOS) activities have been proposed for teaching NOS. This article seeks to understand the contribution of HOS in enhancing…

Science education researchers have long advocated the central role of the nature of science (NOS) for our understanding of scientific literacy. NOS is often interpreted narrowly to refer to a host of epistemological issues associated with the process of science and the limitations of scientific knowledge. Despite its importance, practitioners and…

Physics textbooks often present items of disciplinary knowledge in a sequential order of topics of the theory under instruction. Such presentation is usually univocal, that is, isolated from alternative claims and contributions regarding the subject matter in the pertinent scientific discourse. We argue that comparing and contrasting the…

The phenomenon of industrial melanism (IM) became widely acknowledged as a well-documented example of natural selection largely as a result of H.B.D. Kettlewell's pioneering research on the subject in the early 1950s. It was quickly picked up by American biology textbooks starting in the early 1960s and became ubiquitous throughout the 1970s,…

Educators advocate that science education can help the development of more responsible worldviews when students learn not only scientific concepts, but also about science, or "nature of science". Cosmology can help the formation of worldviews because this topic is embedded in socio-cultural and religious issues. Indeed, during the Cold…

A great amount of research has been carried out world-wide to promote history of science as a powerful science teaching tool. Because the ways of choosing and using historical elements depend on teachers' or researchers' educational purpose, any attempt to support a single model-to-use seems difficult and probably irrelevant. However,…

This is an editorial report on the outcomes of an international conference sponsored by a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) (REESE-1205273) to the School of Education at Boston University and the Center for Philosophy and History of Science at Boston University for a conference titled: "How Can the History and Philosophy of…

This paper is the first part of a three-part project "How the principle of energy conservation evolved between 1842 and 1870: the view of a participant". This paper aims at showing how the new ideas of Mayer and Joule were received, what constituted the new theory in the period under study, and how it was supported experimentally. A…