Rapid growth in public communication of science and technology has led to many diverse training programs. We ask: What are learning goals of science communication training? A comprehensive set of learning goals for future trainings will draw fully from the range of fields that contribute to science communication. Learning goals help decide what to…

The aim of this study is to contribute to an understanding of how curricular change is accomplished in practice, including the positions and conflicts of key stakeholders and participants, and their actions in the process. As a case, we study the treatment of energy in Swedish secondary curricula in the period 1962-2011 and, in particular, how the…

The purpose of this article is to provide a brief literature review and useful suggestions for using advertisements as tools for organizing and accomplishing science teaching and learning. Newspapers and advertisements can be used as a context for developing scientific literacy and for promoting the development of critical thinking skills, through…

Science is a way of knowing about the world. At once a process, a product, and an institution, science enables people to both engage in the construction of new knowledge as well as use information to achieve desired ends. Access to science--whether using knowledge or creating it--necessitates some level of familiarity with the enterprise and…

Our paper analyses the genetics and gene technology contents of German (Bavarian) and Portuguese biology textbooks, as fields common in science-technology-society-environment (STSE) issues. Our aim was to determine the extent to which textbooks from both countries contribute to students' understanding of the STSE issues and therefore to students'…

Even as deficit model science communication falls out of favor, few studies question how written science communication constructs relationships between science and industry. Here, I investigate how textual microprocesses relate scientific research to industry practice in the Washington State wine industry, helping (or hindering) winemakers and…

Developing a standard for a minority language is not a neutral process; this has consequences for the status of the language and how the language users relate to the new standard. A potential inherent problem with standardisation is whether the language users themselves will accept and identify with the standard. When standardising minority…

The learning ability of students in science is improved by socio-scientific decision-making, an important activity that improves a student's scientific literacy, conceptual understanding, scientific inquiry, attitudes, and social values. The socio-scientific issues must be discussed during science classroom activities in the current state of 21st…

This review essay focuses on Özgür Taskin's discussion of the theory of evolution (TOE), intelligent design (ID) and the convictions of fundamentalist science educators and students in his paper entitled: "An exploratory examination of Islamic values in science education: Islamization of science teaching and learning via…

This study used video vignettes of historical episodes from documentary films as a context and instructional tool to promote pre-service science teachers' (PSTs) conceptions of the nature of science (NOS). The participants received explicit-reflective NOS instruction, and were introduced to techniques to be able to use scenes from documentary…

Making an adequate response to our deteriorating environmental situation is a matter of ever increasing urgency. It is argued that a central obstacle to achieving this is the way that scientism has become normalized in our thinking about environmental issues. This is taken to reflect on an underlying "metaphysics of mastery" that vitiates proper…

This paper provides a systematic review of instruments that have the potential to measure the quality of project-based science and technology (S&T) learning environments in elementary school. To this end, a comprehensive literature search was undertaken for the large field of S&T learning environments. We conducted a horizontal bottom-up…

This article provides a critical and global overview of current research into public opinion about science and technology (S&T). Although several sets of high-quality data exist, there remains a lack of international coordination and irregular release of new data in forms that can be widely used. The article highlights a range of key…

This review focuses on science education contributions to the "Canadian Journal of Science, Mathematics and Technology Education" (CJSMTE) from January 2001 through December 2014. Through a combination of content and citation analysis, we examine the journal as a location for conversations around specific themes and broader ideas related…

The public understanding of science is a term now considered somewhat narrow and carrying connotations of a "deficit model" of the public. Since the late 1980s, however, regular public surveys have been conducted to find out what facts about science the public knows. These include such questions as whether the Earth goes round the Sun,…