Abstract
Undergraduate geoscience students are rarely exposed to history and philosophy of science (HPS). I will describe the experiences with a short course unfavourably placed in the first year of a bachelor of earth science. Arguments how HPS could enrich their education in many ways are sketched. One useful didactic approach is to develop a broader interest by connecting HPS themes to practical cases throughout the curriculum, and develop learning activities that allow students to reflect on their skills, methods and their field in relation to other disciplines and interactions with society with abilities gained through exposure to HPS. Given support of the teaching staff, the tenets of philosophy of science in practice, of conceptual history of knowledge, and of ethics of science for society can fruitfully and directly be connected to the existing curriculum. This is ideally followed by a capstone HPS course late in the bachelor programme.
Highlights
Philosophy and history of science are arguably as relevant to students of geoscience as to students of other sciences (e.g. Grüne-Yanoff, 2014 provides arguments for this), but educating this target group poses a specific mixture of philosophical, historical and didactic challenges
The European Geosciences Union (EGU) has 22 scientific divisions that represent all disciplines in the geosciences: atmospheric sciences; biogeosciences; climate; cryospheric sciences; Earth magnetism and rock physics; energy, resources and the environment; Earth and space science informatics; geodesy; geodynamics; geosciences instrumentation and data systems; geomorphology; geochemistry, mineralogy, petrology and volcanology; hydrological sciences; natural hazards; nonlinear processes in geosciences; ocean sciences; planetary and solar system sciences; seismology; stratigraphy, sedimentology and palaeontology; soil system sciences; solarterrestrial sciences; tectonics and structural geology
Historical and philosophical studies touch a few of the disciplines, notably historical disciplines such as geology where it concerns plate tectonics and palaeontology, and the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction well-known for the demise of the non-avian dinosaurs (e.g. Rappaport, 2008 and Rudwick, 2014 for history of geology; e.g. Currie, 2018 for philosophy)
Summary
Philosophy and history of science are arguably as relevant to students of geoscience as to students of other sciences (e.g. Grüne-Yanoff, 2014 provides arguments for this), but educating this target group poses a specific mixture of philosophical, historical and didactic challenges. This reflection paper briefly introduces the field of Geoscience, and outlines the challenges, examples of learning activities that worked, and suggestions to implement HPS durably into undergraduate earth science education. Geoscience, or earth science, is a large connectome of natural science disciplines that study the Earth and other planets. Earth scientists study causes and effects of processes and mechanisms that range over spatiotemporal scales from, e.g., clay particles and molecular dynamics to planetary evolution over billions of years
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
