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.…

Examines one of the key methods used to stimulate bourgeois interest in science in France during the Second Empire and early Third Republic; the campaign to create a popularized science. Concentrates on the "science writings" of Jules Michelet and Jules Verne, both of whom were immensely successful in creating a favorable climate of…