Introduction: The Application of the History
and Philosophy of Science in Science Teaching

Fanny Seroglou • Agustı́n Adúriz-Bravo

Published online: 16 December 2011
� Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

For more than a century now, philosophers and historians of science, educators and science

education researchers have been providing promising ideas and fruitful feedback about

using the history and philosophy of science for a more meaningful science education. Often

curriculum designers and educational policy makers listened, and attended to the advice

coming from these HPST scholars, e.g.: after World War II, in order to re-humanise

science; during the Cold War, to convince the general public that funding scientific

research is crucial; in the dawn of the digital era, in order to justify the dependence of

society on technology; and nowadays, in the times of scientific literacy, for promoting

public understanding of science among consumers and workers in an era of globalisation.

But we could ask is anyone listening to the philosophers and historians of science, the

educators and the science education researchers when they provide a variety of reasons on

how and why the history and philosophy of science may become a dynamic transformation

tool for science teaching? In most of the cases up till now, curricula designers and edu-

cational policy makers, adhering to their own political (and financial) theories, grasp from

the colourful and penetrating HPST teaching approaches only those elements that support

their agendas and help the realisation of their own educational policy.

Is it only their fault? Has the HPST community done anything to prevent this occasional

and anecdotal use of the history and philosophy of science input in science teaching? We

think there is need for concrete theoretical frameworks, applied case studies, research

guidelines and results, as well as for a definition of future goals and perspectives in the

field of the history and philosophy of science in science teaching. Many fruitful research

ideas and teaching approaches have been developed and proposed over the decades, but

they seem so scattered that they sometimes do not build upon each other, and in many

cases they even appear as antagonistic, e.g., the point of view of historians of science

clashing with the point of view of science education researchers. However, this situation

F. Seroglou (&)
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece
e-mail: seroglou@eled.auth.gr

A. Adúriz-Bravo
Universidad de Buenos Aires, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, Argentina
e-mail: aadurizbravo@cefiec.fcen.uba.ar

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Sci & Educ (2012) 21:767–770
DOI 10.1007/s11191-011-9394-8



can be justified as the HPST field is a junction of different study and research traditions:

history of science, philosophy of science, and science education, but also sociology of

science, cognitive psychology, developmental psychology, or more generally ‘science

studies’.

We think there is need for working in research groups formed from specialists coming

from all the above areas with a commitment to make the ideas that each field supports

compatible to the ideas coming from the other fields under the umbrella of HPST, keeping

in mind the goal of transforming research ideas and teaching approaches into proposals of

applicable, easy to comprehend and disseminate teaching scenarios and guidelines. Then

there is great chance that HPST aims are not misinterpreted, misused or partly and

selectively realised. Scholars from all related disciplines have to feel secure to open all

their cards and work with each other; state and elaborate their disagreements, as this will

bring HPST research forward; make their demands and expectations meet and also fulfill

the current educational goals, or promote the development of new ones.

This is not an easy operation; it takes time and work. This special issue of Science &
Education makes an effort to contribute in this direction: all the papers included in it reveal
aspects of the problems and perspectives around the realisation of HPST approaches in

science teaching.

The first group of papers deal with research on ways to integrate the meta-sciences

(history and philosophy of science) in science education. There are a variety of issues

concerning the active or latent theoretical frameworks and foundations underneath

approaches to science teaching informed by the history and philosophy of science.

Teixeira, Greca and Freire present in their paper a meta-analysis of HPST case studies.

They collected, categorised, analysed, and commented a variety of studies offering the

‘‘critical and reliable information’’ that is needed for science education researchers in order

to understand and incorporate HPST elements contributing to science education research,

with a special focus on those concerning NOS.

In Santilli’s paper, through three case studies the understanding of science and tech-

nology interdependence and their interrelations to society is promoted. Although the paper

refers to teachers and learners in a school of engineering, it offers insights for science-

technology-society issues that concern science teaching in general, focusing on the

teaching of NOS and the nature of technology. The paper elaborates the limits of inde-

pendent evolution of knowledge in the context of a multi-factored environment. How

autonomous is the development of science and technology when it takes place in society,

with all the economical, cultural, ethical, utilitarian, political (and many other)

implications?

Faria, Pereira and Chagas in their paper move along the same line of thought, presenting

a palpable example of science-society interaction through the work of a prominent

oceanographer. In their case, a science museum offers the learning environment for the

development and the application of two workshops on classification and specimen drawing

aiming at NOS understandings and motivation for science learning, and reinforcing the co-

operation between science museums and schools in the context of the history and phi-

losophy of science in science teaching.

The second set of papers elaborates on research around practical implementations of the

meta-sciences in science education. No matter how inspired an HPST informed didactical

proposal is, there is need for research data and results from its implementation in the

classroom. There is room to learn both from what went well and from what went wrong. As

we said, HPST comprises researchers from many fields of scholarly endeavour; their

research traditions differ in many aspects. It is thus important to bring to the forefront some

768 F. Seroglou, A. Adúriz-Bravo

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traits of science education research that are substantive to the advancement of the disci-

pline: careful, comparative and critical observation; different kinds of measurements; data

collection and interpretation; evaluation and assessment; production and refinement of

theoretical models. Data supporting theoretical claims are valuable, but even more valuable

are data that defy or contradict our initial hypotheses, because in the case of HPST they

reveal the possibilities and limits of the interactions between the history and philosophy of

science and science education, and furthermore spot areas for future research projects.

Arriassecq and Greca in their paper gather data in favour of the contribution of the use

of the history and philosophy of science to conceptual and motivational aspects of science

learning. The history and philosophy of science in this case offer the background for a

contextualised teaching approach concerning special relativity theory in secondary edu-

cation. In this paper, an example of productive co-ordination of history of science, epis-

temology and pedagogy is presented, focusing on the fact that, in HPST informed learning

environments, students not only appreciate knowledge comprehension but are also inspired

to be involved in learning science.

Develaki in her paper offers the perspective of HPST reinforcing classroom science

teaching, adding on science textbooks (that usually lack of HPST and NOS information)

and contributing in teacher training. In this case, Newton’s theory of gravitation is the

starting point for elaborating fundamental factors of the nature of science, such as crea-

tivity, theory evolution, model formation and scientific methods, whereas direct teaching of

NOS aspects is incorporated into suitable science content.

In Peters’ paper an interesting question is put forward: How to compare explicit and

implicit nature of science teaching? The author attempts to provide data and evidence to

link NOS knowledge and content knowledge. Recorded data point out that, when com-

paring the two teaching modes on different groups, the explicit group outperforms the

implicit one in NOS understandings, in content knowledge assessment, in inquiry work,

and in scientific argumentation skills. Peters with his research is showing that it is time for

more brave and fundamental interventions where HPST and NOS aspects are not only

decorative background teaching elements but structural core teaching aims.

Richards in his paper presents an example of the incorporation of the history and

philosophy of science in science teaching using interactive demonstrations. Students get

familiar with retrograde motion walking through the motions of the planets in both the

Ptolemaic and the Copernican systems. Scientific argumentation is reinforced by body

movements, and research data show that the students who participated in the implemen-

tation perform better on examination questions about the motion of planets.

Décamp and de Hosson’s paper presents an analysis of the widely used instructional

activity that uses Eratosthenes’ method to measure the circumference of Earth; they want

to examine to what extent it can be relevant to deal with issues related to the nature of

science and its history. The authors revise the assumptions under the traditional versions of

the activity, which appears not to be as straightforward for students as previously claimed.

Instead, they propose an educational reconstruction of Eratosthenes’ measurements based

on a narrative by Cleomedes (first century AD). The paper presents the of notion of

‘‘approximation’’ as a key concept of NOS.

In the last paper, Braga, Guerra and Reis aim at evaluating the viability of using

scientific controversies in teaching. They present an educational project introducing some

‘‘historico-philosophical clashes’’ into the classical secondary phyisics curriculum. The

authors deal with the debate between the French nineteenth century physicists Biot and

Ampère, referred to the diverse interpretations of Oersted’s experiment.

Science Teaching 769

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The papers included in this special issue touch many of the research questions still open

in the field of the use of the history and philosophy of science in science teaching: How to

record, categorise and compare previous case studies? How to promote the understanding

of science-technology-society interrelations? How to co-ordinate science museums and

schools in science teaching? How to contextualise science teaching in order to promote

NOS understandings? How to incorporate NOS aspects in science teaching in a way that

does not create but rather solves problems for the teachers? How to compare explicit and

implicit NOS teaching approaches? How to transform aspects of the history and philosophy

of science into motivating and fruitful classroom activities?

The above are only some key questions that can be found in the papers, there are more

issues therein, coming from current research concerning the history and philosophy of

science in science teaching. Research questions need space to grow into research projects,

and research data need space to flourish into actual curriculum and classroom imple-

mentations. The challenge is to shift from theoretical meta-analyses to HPST realisations

in the classrooms, accompanied with the study of all contributing parameters and with the

formation of a matrix of analysis that contributes to put together some of the different

research and academic traditions of the disciplines converging into this exciting area.

770 F. Seroglou, A. Adúriz-Bravo

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	Introduction: The Application of the History and Philosophy of Science in Science Teaching