Research project Science education of today, needs to not only teach students about scientific concepts, models and theories; science education also needs to prepare students to understand the role of science in society and to become well-educated citizens that are able to take responsibility for addressing future societal challenges.
To achieve this change in science education, new teaching approaches need to be developed. Previous research has identified teaching with socio-scientific issues as a promising approach. However, this approach is challenging for many teachers, as it involves changes in beliefs and values as well as the adoption of new practices despite limited resources and already overfull student curricula. To overcome these challenges, it is necessary to build on both experienced teachers’ knowledge and empirical research. This project therefore utilizes teacher-researcher collaboration to develop a better understanding of 1) how science teachers use didactic modelling to develop laboratory teaching that focuses on SSIs, scientific methods, and the Nature of science (NoS), and 2) how students learning and affective experiences influence teachers’ work with didactical modelling. The project will develop and produce a didactic model for teaching functional scientific literacy.
