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Re: Historical material



From: Larry Cartwright <exit60@CABLESPEED.COM>
Date: Thursday, November 29, 2001 11:57 pm

There are teachers and texts who/which put so much emphasis on the
historical aspects of science that kids are left with the idea that's
what science is mostly all about: memorizing the names and dates and
accomplishments of a lot of dead people, like a bad social studies
class.

I suppose this would happen if what we offered were only the 2-
dimensional "scientific hero" illustrustrations to our students. If
all that the students heard include who did what when, they don't see
the people, institutions, culture, etc. to make it believable or
interesting. (Milne, "philosophically correct science stories?", J. of
research in science teaching, 35(2) 175-87 (1998))

This is also what happens in a bad social studies class; 2-D Lincoln
born in the log cabin, Washington and the cherry tree, etc. The
physics knowledge that we teach today didn't just follow a logical
progression of ideas/experiments with individual physicists knowing
just exactly what to do to reach the next level of understanding. It
mostly happened in communities with peer review (mostly political)
process.

I think history of science is best served as dessert, after basic
nutrition has been assured. Or perhaps as with herbs, carefully
used as
an adjunct to the recipe, but not in such strength as to become the
predominant flavor. Or like a fine dinner wine, exquisite but not
really to be drunk for its own sake. Ooooooh, I hope this doesn't
starta can-you-top-this simile contest on Phys-L :-)

I'd agree, but it seems to me that the history is the spice of a dish,
without it, the meat and potatoes can be quite bland. Why did people
study the things they studied? How did we come to understand the things
that we do now? Certainly, the core is still the concepts and
application of those concepts/equations, but in talking about the
applications, it makes sense to include what others have historically
done with the ideas our students are studying. Put in context, the
history paints a more realistic picture of what science is and is not.

I've always appreciated the stories my professors would tell of their
own research experiences and any historical background they could give
on the people whose work we were going to be test on. (At Caltech we
got a lot of Feynman and Linus Pauling stories; AT UCSB we heard
Kroemer's experience at a graduate student proposing the semiconductor
heterostructure as a laser) It does take more effort on our part to
research and read more history of science, but it gives students a more
accurate picture of what science is, who does it, and how it's done.

A couple of references on this topic:
1. Young people's images of science by Driver, Leach, Millar, and
Scott; Open University Press, 1996
2. Reiss, Science education for a pluralist society, Open University
Press, 1993.

There's more where that came from, if you're interested...

Helen Reese
former solid state engineering grad student
current student teacher in physics