Studies on the quality of nature of science (NOS) representations in school science textbooks report them being mostly of implicit manner and not fully adequate. However, the often underlying NOS framework of the consensus list in these studies is criticized as undifferentiated and inadequate. The family resemblance approach (FRA) to NOS shows…

Teleology has been described as an intuitive cognitive bias and as a major type of student conception. There is controversy regarding whether teleological explanations are a central obstacle to, are legitimate in, or are even supportive of science learning. However, interaction in science classrooms has not yet been investigated with regard to…

The inclusion of the history and philosophy of science (HPS) in science teaching is widely accepted, but the actual state of implementation in schools is still poor. This article investigates possible reasons for this discrepancy. The demands science teachers associate with HPS-based teaching play an important role, since these determine teachers'…

This is a vast and vague topic. In order to do justice to it one has to write a book or maybe more than one. For it can be understood in quite different ways and on different levels. For example you may think mainly of the historical aspect, that is how philosophy of science developed in the last hundred or so years and how its influence on…

This paper presents a rationale for utilizing HPS to teach physics and the NoS developed in the course of a project funded by the European Union. A core feature of this approach is formed by the development of historical case studies for the use in lessons. Furthermore, the learners' perspectives are explicitly taken into account. Teaching methods…

These proceedings contain the papers and posters of the International Conference on e-Learning (EL) 2019, which was organised by the International Association for Development of the Information Society and co-organised by the Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto, in Porto, Portugal, July 17-19, 2019. The EL 2019 conference aims to address the…

This essay recounts Hermann von Helmholtz's trip to represent Germany at the International Electrical Congress in Chicago in 1893 as well as his reception by various members of the American scientific, technological, and cultural elite in several other American cities. In doing so, it seeks to portray something of the vitality of the youthful and…

While it is a commonplace in the historiography of electricity that itinerant lecturers and instrument makers were "somehow" part of the "electrical flare" of the 18th century, very little is actually known about them, about their background, their careers and their self-understanding. Yet, research focusing on these…

This handbook encompasses a range of disciplines that underlie the field of peace education and provides the rationales for the ways it is actually carried out. The discipline is a composite of contributions from a variety of disciplines ranging from social psychology to philosophy and from communication to political science. That is, peace…

States that engineers contribute tremendously to the changing face of the earth, and the ever more urgent call for languages, management, and law competencies for engineers is an expression of the need for a grounding in humanities. Discusses the role of humanities in engineering education in the context of world economics and the role of…

The origins of social science as a discipline are analyzed in terms of the German scientific community before 1920, which tended to define itself according to the theories of Karl Marx or Immanuel Kant. Following a brief introduction about the nature of social science debates in intellectual Germany, section 2 of the paper considers whether the…

Argues that scholars must be responsible for the use of their creations and ideas. Examines, through the use of such historical events as the Nazi holocaust and the United States' bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the implications of neglecting responsibility for scientific and scholarly creations. (JDH)

Discusses the activities of German intellectuals who became political activists in France and Germany during the French revolutionary period. Examines how literature became a means to revolutionize the philosophy of these writers. Describes the revolutionary continuum in Germany from the Mainz Republic to the 1848 revolution. (GEA)

Designed to facilitate teacher development of a secondary unit on the Holocaust and genocide, this multidisciplinary curriculum guide provides a wide variety of classroom-tested objectives, learning activities, and materials. The guide is organized into six units which may be taught in sequence or used in part as supplementary materials: the…