Nature_Of_Science

--from an email by Pete Vreeland, 11/4/09

Student ideas about nature of science

 * Technology without limits - Technology will eventually be able to tells us everything there is to know.
 * Facts, proofs, and the Truth - Science is the Truth - whatever that is. It isn't a methodology for explaining the natural world.
 * Fact/Theory/Law - Students confuse the relative importance and meaning of these words.
 * Theories counting as votes - The more theories there are about something, the more ...
 * Truth and exactness and expert scientists -are elements of science
 * students are removed from science. It is not something a mere student can engage in.
 * history of science may cause misunderstanding - Laws named after the phenomena and not those who researched them.
 * accuracy/precision - terms are often misused and misunderstood.
 * Science is for science class and is only done in laboratories
 * Why we do multiple trials - to check for mistakes in the first trial.

What we can do

 * Spend time on definitions
 * History of science - discuss scientists getting things wrong before getting them right.
 * Instrumentation limitations - discuss what a piece of equipment is really telling us.
 * Collect and analyze Group data tables as a class.
 * Careful with our use, as instructors, of vocabulary with respect to important nature of science terms
 * Question analysis - provide content area questions and have them determine how much "science" they really need to answer the question. Point out how some questions can be answered just using a logical approach based on scientific reasoning.