What place is there for the history of science in a science curriculum for citizenship?

1. What place is there for the history of science in a science curriculum for citizenship? Stein Dankert Kolstø 20. February 2001

2. Science curriculum for citizenship “For most people, their contact with science is the many socio-scientific issues that confront them both as individuals and as members of society” Millar, Osborne and Nott 1998

3. I will discuss What role the history of science might play in a science curriculum aiming at empowering lay people to deal fruitfully with socio-scientific issues.

4. Outline • Millikan’s oil drop experiment • Places for the history of science • Warning signs • Conclusion

5. Outline • Millikan’s oil drop experiment • Places for the history of science • Warning signs • Conclusion

6. Outline • Millikan’s oil drop experiment • Places for the history of science • Warning signs • Conclusion

7. Outline • Millikan’s oil drop experiment • Places for the history of science • Warning signs • Conclusion

8. Millikan’s oil drop experiment

9. Millikan’s oil drop experiment Øgrim, Ormestad, Lunde & Jerstad 1985

10. Democritus Proclaimed that matter was composed of indestructible particles

11. Felix Ehrenhaft

12. Robert Andrews Millikan

13. Detail of apparatus

14. Millikan’s apparatus

15. Individual droplets “[Seeing the droplet] moving upward with the smallest speed that it could take on, I could be certain that just one isolated electron was sitting on its back” Millikan, 1951

16. Droplets changing their motion “I had seen a balanced drop suddenly catch an ion [from the surrounding air].” Millikan, sited in Holton, 1978

17. From Millikan’s first paper Reproduced in Holton, 1978

18. From Ehrenhaft’s results Reproduced in Holton, 1978

19. Ex. Millikan’s evaluations • “battery voltage dropped” • “stopwatch error occur” • “the distance must be kept more constant” • “e [calculated elementary charge] = 4.98 which means that this could not have been an oil drop.” Sited in Holton, 1978

20. Ex. Millikan’s comments • “Error high will not use.” • “Very low Something wrong” • “Exactly right” • “Publish this Beautiful one” • “Beauty. Publish this surely, beautiful!” Sited in Holton, 1978

21. Nobel price receivers in physics Nernst, Einstein, Planck, Millikan and von Laue

22. Outline • Millikan’s oil drop experiment • Places for the history of science • Warning signs • Conclusion

23. Places for the history of science Teaching and learning about •the nature of science • cultural frameworks • science-society-technology interactions

24. Places for the history of science Teaching and learning about the nature of science • cultural frameworks • science-society-technology interactions

25. The nature of science “Clearly, many people believe that science is rather simple, at least in the sense that the rules are clear, and that if one follows them (which of course requires competence) the automatic result is valid, universal scientific knowledge.” Millar and Wynne, 1988 p. 395

26. The nature of science Learning goals: Scientific concepts are constructed by humans Observations and theories are mutual dependent Argumentation is an important part of science Science makes use of a plurality of methods

27. The nature of science Learning goals:  Scientific concepts are constructed by humans Observations and theories are mutual dependent Argumentation is an important part of science Science makes use of a plurality of methods

28. The nature of science Learning goals: Scientific concepts are constructed by humans  Observations and theories are mutual dependent Argumentation is an important part of science Science makes use of a plurality of methods

29. The nature of science Learning goals: Scientific concepts are constructed by humans Observations and theories are mutual dependent  Argumentation is an important part of science Science makes use of a plurality of methods

30. The nature of science Learning goals: Scientific concepts are constructed by humans Observations and theories are mutual dependent Argumentation is an important part of science  Science makes use of a plurality of methods

31. The nature of science Learning goals: Scientific concepts are constructed by humans Observations and theories are mutual dependent Argumentation is an important part of science Science makes use of a plurality of methods  No predefined method exists

32. Science for citizenship The nature of science and The relevance of the identified learning goals for a science curriculumforcitizenship

33. Socio-scientific issues whether gene modified food involves a risk to human health or to nature whether irradiated food have reduced nutritional value whether the worlds change in climate is linked to human activities

34. Science for citizenship The nature of science and The idea of scientific facts implies that lay people have no right to doubt Bauer, 1994

35. Places for the history of science Teaching and learning about •the nature of science cultural frameworks • science-society-technology interactions

36. Cultural frameworks “To be ignorant of the works of Darwin involves an educational flaw at least as huge as not to know essential features of [the works of] Marx and Freud.” Eriksen, 1997

37. Cultural frameworks Central cultural issues: The relationship between competition and collaboration Man’s free will The idea that the world evolves The relation between the individual, the art and the ecosystem. Eriksen, 1997

38. Cultural frameworks “Science education should make much grater use of one of the world’s most powerful and pervasive ways of communicating ideas – the narrative form...” Millar & Osborne, 1998 p. 13

39. Places for the history of science Teaching and learning about •the nature of science • cultural frameworks science-society-technology interactions

40. Science-society interactions Should for instance scientists decide on what energy types Norway should use? And does the surrounding culture and scientists personal philosophies influence the content of their discoveries? And how might scientific research relate to interests and power?

41. Science-technology interactions Technology merely as applied science is simply wrong! The development of the Diesel engine: Diesel and his collaborators came up not with a Carnot machine, but as we all know, with a Diesel engine

42. Outline • Millikan’s oil drop experiment • Places for the history of science • Warning signs • Conclusion

43. Warning signs Which histories of science? Choice of perspective Picture of science

44. Warning signs Which histories of science?  Choice of perspective Picture of science

45. Choice of perspective A superficial treatment of the history of science might easily result in “fictionalized idealisations” Monk & Osborne, 1997 p. 406

46. Warning signs Which histories of science? Choice of perspective  Picture of science

47. Picture of science the institutionalisation of natural philosophy in the seventeenth century the professionalisation of science in the nineteenth century the twentieth century gave us the socialisation and industrialisation of science Aikenhead, 1994

48. Picture of science “How much longer can 19th century school science masquerade as legitimate science?” Aikenhead, 1994

49. Conclusion What place is there for the history of science in a science curriculum for citizenship? • Illustration and depth • Careful selection needed • Balance with contemporary science