New Perspectives in Science Education

In this paper an attempt will be made to illustrate the importance of introducing elements of the history of science into science teaching at high school. I will describe two cases of this epistemological method of integrating elements of the history of science into teaching science in secondary education. I will argue that the aim of that teaching and learning approach is, first, to motivate students to participate in problem-solving activities and to be in the position to transform their alternative conceptions about various natural phenomena. Secondly, teaching science from a historical perspective makes scientific knowledge as such a contextual achievement and not a metaphysical product that exists out there. Finally, I will argue that introducing the historical approach in mathematics and physics is extremely affective for a pedagogical approach that cares for the cultivation of democratic principles at school by giving emphasis to the framework within which scientific knowledge is born and developed and the framework within which scientific knowledge is an already organized body of issues, contents and theories in process.
 

Keywords: history, science, knowledge