Imaginative Biology: an online resource providing a new approach to Science Education

Description

This communication presents the website Imaginative Biology, an open access online resource designed for 10th to 12th grade and college-level science teachers, educators and students, and explores its methodology, which builds extensively on research in the history of science in order to improve learning by showing how fundamental scientific concepts and theories evolved through time. Although the idea of using research in the history and philosophy of science to complement science teaching was initially met with skepticism by historians of science in the 1960s and 1970s, historians of science and science educators started to emphasize the pedagogical potential of a historical approach in the last decades, as a means to overcome the perceived crisis in the science education field. Research in history and philosophy of science is increasingly viewed as useful for providing a deeper understanding of scientific concepts and theories, for conveying the nature of science, and developing a sense of how science really works in practice. However, adherence to such approaches has been slow, in part because of a lack of appropriate teaching resources. Web resources constitute a potentially far-reaching possibility for the spread of new pedagogical approaches to science teaching, as exemplified by the successful case of the University of California/Museum of Paleontology’s Understanding Science website. In this communication, the recently launched website Imaginative Biology is presented as a pedagogical tool that builds on the history of biology to enhance the understanding of fundamental biological concepts. The website provides a historically accurate and useful explanation of the development of Darwin’s theory of evolution and of the early history of the concept of gene. Drawing insights from the pedagogical proposals of Bruce Alberts, and especially Kieran Egan’s Imaginative Education Research Group, the narratives in Imaginative Biology rely on storytelling devices to explain the process that led to a particular discovery and discuss the proposed theories and concepts by presenting them in the context of the scientists’ own biography and sociocultural background. Such historical approach to the teaching of fundamental concepts can provide a new way of engaging with students and bringing about learning with understanding in biology courses.

Period	24 Jul 2017
Event title	25th International Congress of History of Science and Technology: Science, Technology and Medicine between the Global and the Local
Event type	Conference
Location	Rio de Janeiro, BrazilShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International