Nature of Science in Science education: a proposal based on “themes” and “questions”

Abstract

This work addresses issues related to knowledge about Science in Science education, particularly about the question “what to teach” in relation to metascientific content. We explore the existence of a “Consensus View” (CV) about Nature of Science (NOS) in the literature on the area of Science Education, showing that there are different routes, terminologies, starting points and conclusions when we analyze the literature around this “consensus”. We then explore certain characteristics of the CV – related to its form and its content – and present some criticisms already made of it, particularly those regarding the use of declarative knowledge associated with the CV, as well the content of some of the statements. In the final section, we suggest what we consider to be a more open, pluralistic and heterogeneous approach to deal with knowledge about science in the school science curriculum. This approach, based on ‘themes’ and questions instead of ‘tenets’, attempts to overcome some of the criticisms previously discussed.