The purpose of this study was to better understand how middle school students consider the source of information when processing videos with conflicting information. To this end, we exposed a sample of seventh-graders to a series of videos in which two interviewees expressed divergent positions on a socioscientific issue ('Will organic farming be…

Socio-scientific issues and socially acute questions enable moral judgement through rational, emotional, intuitive and imaginative thinkings. Our research focuses more specifically on the place of the myth in student discussions about controversial issues. We have analysed the mythemes expressed through online exchanges between students from…

Scientific expertise and outcomes often give rise to controversy. An educational response that equips students to take part in socioscientific discussions is the teaching of Socially Acute Questions (SAQs). Students engaging with SAQs need to engage with socio scientific reasoning, which involves reasoning with evidence from a variety of fields…

Recent efforts in the science education community have highlighted the need to integrate research and theory from science communication research into more general science education scholarship. These synthesized research perspectives are relatively novel but serve an important need to better understand the impacts that the advent of rapidly…

The educative goal of citizenship education through science education converges to the declared purpose of the SSI research movement. Socioscientific issues formulated in science education research covering topics as biotechnology, environmental issues, sustainable development, energy choices, have been introduced in French Middle Schools. But…

We experimented with teaching nanotechnology in high school within the perspective of citizenship education in science by involving experts in nanotechnology, education, ethics and philosophy. After training, the students debated a Socially Acute Question (SAQ) that they elaborated during the various phases of instruction. The field of SAQs…

Scientific expertise and outcomes often give rise to controversy. An educational response that equips students to take part in such discussions is the teaching of socially acute questions (SAQs). With SAQs, the understanding of uncertainty, risk and how knowledge is developed is central. This study explores the way in which students from different…

In this article, we describe a project on reasoning about socio-scientific issues (SSIs), involving French and Australian pre-service science teachers engaged in on-line discussion and development of a wiki. In the research, we developed frameworks for looking at the quality of reasoning about "socially acute" sustainability questions.…

This study investigates the reasons for science teachers' tendencies to teach socio-scientific issues in their classrooms. Teaching social problems is highly recommended in science education to increase student understanding of economical, environmental, political, and ethical issues in science. Results indicate that teachers show a positive…

Reports on a survey of first year French university students to discover their views and opinions on the subject of "Science and Technology." Content analysis was used to study scientific titles and texts produced by the students. The main ideas deduced from this analysis encompassed themes such as scientific discovery and conquest,…

Investigates school children's images of scientists in Brazil, the United States, France, Italy, Chile, Mexico, India, and Nigeria by having them make drawings. Discusses the relationship between image and career choice. (DDR)

Students' conceptions about "microbes" tend to condition their understanding of biotechnology. Explores connections between the status given to diseases, a hygiene-oriented culture, layman's versus school knowledge, personal experience, socio-cultural mediation, linguistic confusions, and students' conceptions. (Contains 21 references.)…

The Université des Lycéens (University of High-School Students) was set up in France in order to make scientific knowledge more relevant to students and to combat a growing lack of interest in science among students. The scheme involves a series of lectures to students by scientists, each followed by a debate. The organisers hope that putting…