On Science and Society – and knowledge for all Mattias Lundin & Ragnar Olsson Erasmus IP Ioannina June 13th 2012

The structure of the presentation – a trialogue Trialogue (part one) Short youtube clip Discussion 1 Discussion 2 Trialogue (part two) Also: Basis for the workshop. What we present can maybe be used in the discussions in the workshop

On Science and Society – and knowledge for all Scientific Literacy On today’s schoolwork On my further education On my contribution to the future society

On Science and Society – and knowledge for all The charter tourist The backpacker

On Science and Society – and knowledge for all A youtube clip 12 minutes Attention to your own reflections Use your teacher eyes!

Concierto evolucion Visa filmen fram till avslutningen Fundera en och en kring vad du uppfattar som viktigast att fundera över från filmen. Skriv ner dian argument Bilda grupp tre och tre: diskutera vilken av era tre frågor som ni tycker ska föras vidare. Kom överens om vilka argument ni har för just denna fråga. Skriv ner era gemnsamma Bilda nya grupper, tre och tre, m delt fr två andra grupper. Ny disk. Dokumentera era ställningstagande. Samlas i era internationella grupper. Diskutera era ställningtsganden från den tidigare gruppen. Dokumentera. Paus. Fortsatt föreläsning

Concierto evolucion On your own: What is the most important reflection that you would like to bring up from the film? Write down your choice on a paper and why you made that choice Visa filmen fram till avslutningen Fundera en och en kring vad du uppfattar som viktigast att fundera över från filmen. Skriv ner dian argument Bilda grupp tre och tre: diskutera vilken av era tre frågor som ni tycker ska föras vidare. Kom överens om vilka argument ni har för just denna fråga. Skriv ner era gemnsamma Bilda nya grupper, tre och tre, m delt fr två andra grupper. Ny disk. Dokumentera era ställningstagande. Samlas i era internationella grupper. Diskutera era ställningtsganden från den tidigare gruppen. Dokumentera. Paus. Fortsatt föreläsning

Together with the person sitting next to you: Concierto evolucion Together with the person sitting next to you: What is the most important reflection that you would like to bring up from the film (only one issue) Write down your choice on a paper and why you made that choice 5 minutes Visa filmen fram till avslutningen Fundera en och en kring vad du uppfattar som viktigast att fundera över från filmen. Skriv ner dian argument Bilda grupp tre och tre: diskutera vilken av era tre frågor som ni tycker ska föras vidare. Kom överens om vilka argument ni har för just denna fråga. Skriv ner era gemnsamma Bilda nya grupper, tre och tre, m delt fr två andra grupper. Ny disk. Dokumentera era ställningstagande. Samlas i era internationella grupper. Diskutera era ställningtsganden från den tidigare gruppen. Dokumentera. Paus. Fortsatt föreläsning

Together with your (international) group: Concierto evolucion Together with your (international) group: Try to agree upon the most important reflection that you would like to bring up from the film (only one reflection) Write down your choice and why you made that choice. E-mail your choice: ragnar.olsson@lnu.se ~20 minutes Visa filmen fram till avslutningen Fundera en och en kring vad du uppfattar som viktigast att fundera över från filmen. Skriv ner dian argument Bilda grupp tre och tre: diskutera vilken av era tre frågor som ni tycker ska föras vidare. Kom överens om vilka argument ni har för just denna fråga. Skriv ner era gemnsamma Bilda nya grupper, tre och tre, m delt fr två andra grupper. Ny disk. Dokumentera era ställningstagande. Samlas i era internationella grupper. Diskutera era ställningtsganden från den tidigare gruppen. Dokumentera. Paus. Fortsatt föreläsning

Your reflections!

Conclusions?

Let’s see if the final part of the video-clip can give us a hint! Conclusions? Let’s see if the final part of the video-clip can give us a hint!

Science and technology for all, what is that? How do we address the concept science and technology for all, as teachers? Defining the core of science knowledge

Science and technology for all?

Or let’s try another approach… Let’s teach! Or let’s try another approach… Democracy Power Participation

Science and society – a metaphor

Science and society – another metaphor

Science and society – another metaphor

Science and society – another metaphor

How do we use the different threads? Wolff Michael Roth Fibre- thread Roth, W.-F. (2002). Scientific literacy as an emergent feature of collective human praxis. Journal of Curriculum Studies 35(1) p.9-23. How do we use the different threads? Who is to decide what to do with it?

Ecological Economic Social Sustainability Ekologi= räcka till alla (över tid), hållbar över tid, KERNEL EXAMPLE Ekonomi = fördelning och rättvisa, growth, DIVISION OF RESOURCES Social = peace, justice, democracy, participation, EQUALITY

Sustainable development Equitable = skälig, rättvis Viable = livskraftig Bearable = uthärdlig, dräglig, possible to live in

What does this mean to teachers’ assignment? Scientific literacy What does this mean to teachers’ assignment? What is important paying special attention to? Social perspective. Social sustainable development, Observera: individnivå - deltagande PARTICIPATION

To promote learning – what learning? Three different approaches when designing learning situation Essentialism Progressivism Reconstructivism Social perspective. Social sustainable development, Observera: individnivå - deltagande PARTICIPATION

ESSENTIALISM Subject content in focus Central concepts of the subject Organisation of the existing subject knowledge Knowledge is built in accordance with for example the corresponding academic subject The teacher becomes a crucial person in the classroom – the person that knows the subject

PROGRESSIVISM The student in focus The student’s interest in focus for the activity Meaningful activities Students’ experiences are crucial for learning Problem solving and cooperation Direct experiences are to prefer The students need to be active.

RECONSTRUCTIVISM The construction of sustainable society The student’s learning is a part of the reconstruction of the society Democratic development Different perspectives need to be elicited To use knowledge to argue in, for example the public debate To critically evaluate different alternatives

Different consequences for science education Fact based education Normative education Education based on sustainable development Discription of teaching: Facts, causes, processes Value issues. Teaching to do the right choices Discussions, different choices and consequences -ism: Essentialism Essentialism (facts) + progressivism Reconstructivism Issues are… …to be solved by research … value issues, solved as a moral issue … political issues that are solved in a democratic processs. (Sandell, Öhman & Östman, 2003)

Who has the power? Albert Einstein: "Concern for man himself must always constitute the chief objective of all technological effort -- concern for the big, unsolved problems of how to organize human work and the distribution of commodities in such a manner as to assure that the results of our scientific thinking may be a blessing to mankind, and not a curse." Scientists in the 1930s, using machines that could break apart the nuclear cores of atoms, confirmed Einstein's formula E=mc² . The release of energy in a nuclear transformation was so great that it could cause a detectable change in the mass of the nucleus. But the study of nuclei -- in those years the fastest growing area of physics -- had scant effect on Einstein. Nuclear physicists were gathering into ever-larger teams of scientists and technicians, heavily funded by governments and foundations, engaged in experiments using massive devices. Such work was alien to Einstein's habit of abstract thought, done alone or with a mathematical assistant. In return, experimental nuclear physicists in the 1930s had little need for Einstein's theories. In August 1939 nuclear physicists came to Einstein, not for scientific but for political help. The fission of the uranium nucleus had recently been discovered. A long-time friend, Leo Szilard, and other physicists realized that uranium might be used for enormously devastating bombs. They had reason to fear that Nazi Germany might construct such weapons. Einstein, reacting to the danger from Hitler's aggression, had already abandoned his strict pacifism. He now signed a letter that was delivered to the American president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, warning him to take action. This letter, and a second Einstein-Szilard letter of March 1940, joined efforts by other scientists to prod the United States government into preparing for nuclear warfare. Einstein played no other role in the nuclear bomb project. As a German who had supported left-wing causes, he was denied security clearance for such sensitive work. But during the war he did perform useful service as a consultant for the United States Navy's Bureau of Ordnance.

To think about before the Linnaeus workshop How do we use our different knowledge? Who has the power to make decisions about how knowledge is used?

Ragnar ragnar.olsson@lnu.se Mattias mattias.lundin@lnu.se Thanks for paying attention Ragnar ragnar.olsson@lnu.se Mattias mattias.lundin@lnu.se

Roth, W.-F. (2002). Scientific literacy as an emergent feature of collective human praxis. Journal of Curriculum Studies 35(1) p.9-23.   Några utvalda avsnitt ur artikeln som skulle kunna ingå i vår keynote. When theorised from the viewpoint of praxis, ‘scientific literacy’ is not something that is owned by (or characterises) certain individuals. Rather, ‘scientific literacy’ is an emergent, collective phenomenon. Such scientific literacy may, for example, emerge when ordinary citizens question a scientist about the methodology he used, which turns out to fall short considering the problem at hand. (p. 7) Thinking the relationship between individual and collective life in terms of fibre and thread allows us a new approach to theorising ‘scientific literacy’. It is no longer a property of a single fibre or a small number of fibres (scientific community) but it is a property that becomes recognisable and analysable at the level of the thread. Thinking of science as a fibre among fibres helps us to understand it as an entity and as context in a more general endeavour (thread). From the perspective of the thread, science plays a role as all the other forms of knowledge and practices (p. 7) Thinking the relationship between individual and collective life in terms of fibre and thread allows us a new approach to theorising ‘scientific literacy’. It is no longer a property of a single fibre or a small number of fibres (scientific community) but it is a property that becomes recognisable and analysable at the level of the thread. Thinking of science as a fibre among fibres helps us to understand it as an entity and as context in a more general endeavour (thread). From the perspective of the thread, science plays a role as all the other forms of knowledge and practices; any attempt to privilege it abstracts from the fact that it itself exists only because of all the other threads. Science education would then be the endeavour to make scientific literacy possible as a collective rather than individual characteristic. It would amount to creating opportunities for individuals (fibres) to participate, each in their own ways, to contribute to the emergence of the phenomenon at a collective level. We are then interested not only in what scientists have to say at the meeting, but also in what all the others have to say who participate (speak, listen, applaud), and specifically the residents whose access to proper drinking water is being denied. This means that not all individuals have to know a basic stock of scientific facts or concepts—we do drive without knowing anything about car mechanics and we do eat bread without knowing how to bake. If we take scientific literacy to be a characteristic of emergent collective practice, then it does not matter which piece each and everyone contributes but that in the end, decisions are made that take account of a variety of relevant (local) knowledge, values, and beliefs. (p. 7) Rethinking knowing and learning, science and scientific literacy, and collective public meetings and individual contributions from the perspective of fibres and thread, leads us to radically different conclusions about what and how curriculum should be designed and enacted. When learning is no longer identified with grey matter between the ears but with the relations between people and with doing things together, our views of teaching will change. When learning no longer ‘belong[s] to individual persons, but to the various conversations of which they are part’ (McDermott 1993: 292), we need to rethink what science curriculum ought to look like. (p. 8)