Contemporary science as context for teaching nature of science: teachers’ development of popular science articles as a teaching resource

Abstract

Most of the physics (as well as the other sciences) taught in school can be described as well-established or consensus science. This is the kind of science knowledge that was mostly developed over a century ago. The inclusion of contemporary science research in compulsory school science teaching could be justified from a variety of reasons: increasing students’ interest and motivation; providing insights into modern research practice; and as a frame for teaching nature of science (NOS) perspectives. The present article focuses on the latter—contemporary science as a means to teach NOS. The article builds on data from an in-service teacher training course that focused on ways to include contemporary science in lower secondary physics education. Each course participant chose a research area, interviewed a scientist, and wrote a popular science article based on the interview. The article was written with secondary students (13–15 years old) as a target audience. By the end of the course the participants designed, implemented and evaluated a teaching unit which was based on the popular science article. The present article analyses what NOS perspectives that have been included in the popular science articles. The results show a high diversity of NOS aspects, which indicate a great potential for taking contemporary science research as a starting point for NOS teaching.