 So, of course, this is a very insensitive sort of a viewpoint, but the fact is they did bring in these considerations then when they talked about that. At level 4, issues related to ethical premises may be debated. So, the controversy is related to, I mean at this level is related to lack of consensus between the parties on ethical premises, like for instance, there was a student in my study who was very troubled, you know and he said that you know Saragasi actually amounts to trading the body and you cannot commodify a body in that manner and he also said that I mean he actually used an analogy, he said that you know it's like, it's like you're buying a fish, you know from a shop. So, but then of course others weren't able to see that viewpoint and they had a lot of disagreements on this. And of course, there are also other questions like you know do we really have, I mean students may also raise questions like do we really have the right to have a child? You know given that there are so many children put out for adoption and so do we really need you know a genetic family when you know they can very well be a social family and you know technologies of this kind they tend to reinforce you know patriarchal institutions such as families based on genetic links. So that level 5 issues related to concepts, I mean conceptual indeterminacy may be raised. So here the controversy between parties involved may be due to different interpretation of concepts involved. So like for instance, you know students may raise questions like you know, and of course this is related to level 4, thus lending genetic material amount to role of you know a surrogate as a parent and of course one may also talk about adoption at this level and wouldn't a social mother also be a mother? The other questions that could be raised is are the surrogates making a choice to rend their wounds and the parents actually said that yes, I mean it's their choice and they are getting money for it. So what is wrong? But then the question is it really is a choice by poverty, a free choice because there is clearly a lack of transaction surrogate mother being exploited and can a person actually choose to be exploited if she deems it you know necessary. At level 6, the controversy might be due to differences in perspectives that arise due to difference in interest positions. So it depends on how the participants may approach the issue and you know what sort of sides they may have with the people involved in the entire arrangement. Like for instance, if participants look at the commercial surrogacy from the interest position of commissioning parents, they may see it as justified because you know of course they are going to get their own biological child and you know as long as they but if they look at the perspective of the surrogate mother, they may not really see it. The technology is actually running on someone's need for money. So I mean how do they approach the issue and what kind of interest positions do they take with regard to it? At level 8, the controversy is due to differing total, the controversy might be due to differing total experiences of the people involved. So I mean a person who has a personal experience with adoption may see IVF very differently from a person who has no experience of adoption. So like for instance, I mean there was a student in my study who just refused to engage with the question of whether this technology is acceptable at all because you know he just said that you know why do you actually need you know a genetic family? I mean it's really not needed, you can always treat someone as your own family. So I mean I am thinking that perhaps he has a personal experience which makes him approach the issue in this particular manner. At level 9, the controversy might be over you know whole frameworks of understanding, relevant to judgment, this is the way when it's been phrased. So it's primarily you know differences over world views and you know the premises of arguments. So like of course there was one student, I mean so here religion might play a role and there was one student for example who said that you know Islam may not permit IVF because we have to be satisfied with what God gives us. So he actually felt that you know infertility is also something that is God given. So you know why would one need to go for this particular technology? So I mean it could happen that other students may disagree with him on this and you know this is a potential source of controversy. Now I mean of course this is very complicated and you know you can actually pass the issue into multiple dimensions. But now the question is what is the role of the teacher you know when teaching these issues and how is this framework helping them. So of course the teacher needs to take students through these different levels. Like for example at level 1 and 2 which is related to evidence, teachers need to understand that science and socio-scientific issues are contentious, conflicting and value-led. So there needs to be a certain understanding of nature of science. And of course it is very much different from the science that is presented in the textbooks which is generally ready made science involving concepts, principles and procedures. So this is something they need to understand. And the teacher needs to help students, sift through different sources of evidence and also of course help them understand nature and reliability of evidence and of course potential bias in different sources of evidence. Now when you come to levels which involve values, and personal experiences it becomes much more tricky because it might be very difficult to get them to achieve consensus on these matters. So you know merely using a certain kind of logic, co-scientific argumentation at this level may not help. So what is needed I mean according to Ralph Levinson is to establish communicative virtues. You know where students are you know lies and willingness to listen to one's opponents. He also talks about something known as empathetic conceptual imagination where a student is actually encouraged I mean is made to see another person's viewpoint by standing in his or her shoes. So they say that personal narratives can actually play a powerful role you know in effecting this. Like for instance I do remember that a participant in my study she had read this powerful narrative you know in a newspaper article where which was talking about Saragit mothers you know who were confined in this house and they were of course living in very deplorable conditions and somehow that influenced the way she was reasoning about it. And of course one could also make use of other techniques such as role play and then of course use documentaries as a resource for you know making them see multiple viewpoints. So what the framework has I mean the framework actually helps in understanding issues in a structured manner and it is useful for teachers as well as researchers. The good part is I mean social justice concerns can be raised and discussed as we saw in this particular example. Scientific evidence is not privileged in resolution of the controversy though recognized as important and of course this is the kind of framework that I have put it into and it also recognizes other domains of knowledge such as ethics, cultural worldviews and personal experiences. Now next we come to the question are we really ready for socio-scientific issues in the Indian science curriculum. Now there is an articulation of a need for STSA outcomes in the NCRT position paper on the teaching of science. So what is mentioned there is when deciding on gradation of science curriculum it must be borne in mind that a majority of students learning science as a compulsory subject up to class 10 are not going to train as professional scientists or technologists in the later years. Yet they need to become scientifically literate since several of the social, political and ethical issues posed by contemporary society increasingly revolve around science and technology. Currently the science curriculum up to class 10 should be oriented towards developing awareness among the learners about the interface of science, technology and society sensitizing them specially to the issues of environment and health and enabling them to acquire practical knowledge and skills to enter the world of work. So here there is clearly an STSA emphasis at least for students up to class 10. But at the same time the position paper also points out that facts, principles, theories and their applications to understand various phenomena are at the core of science and the science curriculum must obviously engage the learner with them appropriately. So what, so what I, the sense that I get is there are pressures on the curriculum to balance both disciplinary interests as well as incorporate STS content and this is something that is very complex and difficult to resolve I am guessing. Now if you look at how the science curriculum has been organized at different levels. At the primary level there is an emphasis on environmental science and of course where there is a fusion of science and social science and of course NCRT textbooks have also done a very good job of bringing in a lot of critical content where students can be made to think of social justice concerns. But then what we find is from the upper primary level onwards curriculum prescriptions and textbooks begin to emphasize content knowledge and pressure. And of course at the higher secondary level I mean you know it gets only you know co-curricular status. So I mean my concluding thoughts I mean that I would like to leave with are I would say that there is definitely a need to introduce socio-scientific issues at the school level and the undergraduate level as part of the formal curriculum. Now AIMS curriculum or not actually needs to be debated. So that's something that we really need to think about because given that there are a lot of disciplinary pressures on the science curriculum. So one possibility is that it could be introduced at the school level and in the form of integrated themes and projects that cut across subjects and you know you could have teachers involved in cross disciplinary collaboration in teaching these issues that's one possibility. And of course the other thing is that you know the pedagogical skills needed to teach these issues also need to be in place and I've talked about the complexities regarding that. So I mean there are also several other research scholars in the centre who are working in STSE education and some of them are here and there are others as well you know like I haven't mentioned Rossi and Amit were working in inclusion disability studies. I'd like to call Sugaram to accompany me. She wanted me in this area as well. Well very good presentation Aswati. I don't think you know me so well. No it's not that. No no, I do not know about it. Excellent and I think this subject is open to discussion now so we'll have a few minutes of questions. Yes. I like your presentation very much. Thank you. I'm slightly worried about the choice of your example. Okay. That is of surrogacy and you try to say that is the age standard NCRG textbook that says test tube baby. Right. I don't know I may be wrong but please correct me. Test tube baby is not equivalent to surrogacy. Yes it is not. That is right. Surrogacy is an extremely complex procedure and you are perhaps exposing the kids for the first time to this very complex issue. Yes. My only worries that perhaps you could have chosen more simpler examples of technology to fit in your eight or nine levels which you were trying to put your technologies against and one thought which came to my mind which is a burning issue in India and touches all of us is mobile tasks. Mobile tasks. Touches all of us, health is there, environmental aspect is there and it fits beautifully in your STM scheme. Thank you. I respond to your concern that the issue is very complex. I mean when I introduced students to this particular issue I made sure I described the technology very thoroughly and it was done with high secondary students. So I mean they understood the nuances of the issue and I didn't progress until they made sense of the issue very thoroughly and of course I also needed to bring in social justice concerns and I felt that those issues were inherent in this particular issue. I'm not very sure whether this, I mean the mobile tar example that you gave me would have these concerns regarding inequality and I know it sounds very opportunistic but then, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. Thank you. You're good to see you. Hi Ash. Thanks for the nice presentation. I wanted to ask like what kind of suggestions you could have for teacher professional development because if the teacher has to engage at all these different layers then the teacher also needs to understand that all these things are important but if a science teacher takes up this kind of discussion in the classroom and she also needs to value all these different layers equally. If you have any suggestions for teacher professional development? I mean I had a slide when I was talking about what are the basic concerns that a teacher would be faced with if she had to deal with these issues but I don't know if I have the expertise or the knowledge to talk about what exactly should go into their brain because I myself went through a process understanding these issues. That process itself is... That I would have to perhaps make it explicit perhaps write it in the form of a diary or something so that I can also be more clear about what that means. I think the way you have made this presentation itself made us all aware of these different layers that are there in the issue which we would not have been seeing if we were just reading those media reports and analysis of an event in this manner itself is quite illuminating. Oh God! It's really fair to say that all scientists themselves are quite aware of the fact that lots of scientific training both of these some sort of knowledge is to be important and the risk of increasing course work for the load on the students courses like history of science and science application for society will definitely deserve to be pushed into this whether this curriculum system would allow extra load... So it's not as though among the science profile. Not saying that. Hello very nice and teaching the same topic in standard A in school number 2 I am working over there and same topic this year only I taught for 3 years I am teaching the same topic particularly that lesson and every time I introduce all the aspects of that to baby as well as Sarugase and these are small kids I am teaching in 8th standard so every time I introduce every aspects you also talk about Sarugase I am introducing that it is not in the syllabus still I make a point that to introduce all the aspects related to that topic and children are very much interested and they come forward for discussion and all so I didn't know that you are doing research on this topic but in the classroom environment I feel very much encouraged to teach on it. Personally I am a biology teacher so I teach in the classroom so I like your topic Thank you Ashwati Thank you very much I think we have to move on and request to come here come here and of course present to us history of science and science education I need not to this audience introduce Sarugama he was the center director from 1994 to 2008 and he has been exceptionally good physics teacher and of course the quality of the science education as well it's my pleasure to thank you I would say great honor and great it's a nice step I am able to participate in this seminar that has been organized in memory of most precious colleague of ours whom we lost about 6 months ago well having said that I must say that I am quite unprepared for this talk and basically I agreed to give this talk because of my affection respect for Chitra I thought I must come and speak this seminar that's been held in memory so please pardon me for lack of professionalism this talk is not going to be this talk is not going to be I mean this talk I have prepared for general sense and most of you will find it a repetition most of it is repetition of what I spoke several years ago at TIFR February National Science day right so there was a lecture there I had prepared this talk in connection with that it's not really a professional educational talk but more for students on the importance of history of science I think it may be a bit redundant for this audience most of these are career BCC members and they are all already convinced so I don't need to belabor too much yeah I will start with this is the content outline I do not think I will have that's quite a long talk so I do not think I will have time to go through all this in detail and maybe I will leave most I should quickly finish the talk and leave the discussion anyway let me begin as I said most scientists and science teachers do have interest in history of science most of us usually talk about it superficially in our classrooms but this spraying into history almost always taken as a digression that's the usual situation places now around 1960s also this content the existing curriculum for number of reasons and some of the people curriculum reformers some were beginning to think that HOS could be given a more important role in science education at that time also there were some some developments in philosophy of science which connected philosophy to history mainly because of Boone's work etc HOS and history of science and philosophy of science and what it implies for science education the kind of field emerged which has since been quite an active area of science education research I must say it is not from 1960s the importance of history has been important it has been there for a long time in fact very eminent scientists have emphasized their role come for a long time the names have come to one's mind of for example Mark great physicist the book on mechanics and so on and there have been many others in fact after the it seems to me after reading some of his literature that after the first world war there was a lot of interest in humanizing science and history of science was taken to be a way of humanizing it books in physics as well as chemistry were written around that time once again post second world war there was again renewed interest there was interest in strengthening the discipline the content part of it there was also interest in this so two parallel strands sort of emerged after the second world war first that we should our scientist should be the discipline, pressure as somebody referred and the other thing was there was a feeling that science should be humanized and so on so when I said I said all this because this sentence might give a long impression that it all started in nineteen sixties the only thing probably what has happened is the kind of community has grown around this field and earlier they were more or less isolated scientists and so on and educated scientists the field has many dimensions it is relevant to all subjects it is relevant to all levels middle school high school probably at the primary level it may not be may not be more than some inspiring narratives but from middle school it can be done my personal feeling is that it is within the Indian context it is best done at the higher secondary level it is mine feeling it would be wrong people may not agree if you know it is higher secondary curriculum it is exceedingly content oriented currently will I think if this orientation is given historical orientation might be a good idea at the higher secondary level from nineteen sixties a lot of work has been has accumulated over this field and this reference handbook on this subject by Matthews is an extremely good reference on this subject I will give you reference at the end and this handbook I think our library does not has not yet acquired it is a very costly book at the end but it is a bold mine of references it is a huge I think three volume work and very nice articles by leaders in this field so if one wants to start the discussion I think this handbook is a good thing to start on as many people have emphasized earlier that nature of science has become an important bold science everybody accepted and NCF 2005 also has accepted but as far as the HOS is concerned I know it is not in any noticeable way influenced but if something has been done please correct me as far as I know at least at the higher secondary level I am quite sure nothing has been done but as far as I may have been done little bit so one of the aims of this talk is to educate this school field for science education research I think in India there has been no substantial research in this field HPSM in fact that huge volume has not a single article by any except in a culture study or something by any but but mainstream research has not by any Indian in that it is a bit of a it is interesting many other countries China, Japan, many other countries have good programs in this field already one would not have thought China would have good programs they have still I mean HPS has always been thought to be it sort of humanizes science brings scientists science teachers, science educators everybody together so it is a kind of bridge can be a bridge the divide that exists between so called content experts and science educators etc there is some potential to bridge the divide and so gross can come together to develop this curriculum so I would like to reflect at this point that yeah that so what kind of project do you want to especially at the high secondary level there are content experts and you know experts, a lot of experts professional experts in education cognitive science and science education and science content experts they can come together and develop this high secondary science curriculum I'm quite sure it's never going to be accepted in India that kind of thing because it will be it's bound to be at the cost of content and it's very hard to at this level with all kinds of exams and so on sharing with students it's going to be very hard to implement the HPS oriented curriculum at the high secondary level where I believe it's a good spoke to you know to develop that's the proper level but in India probably everywhere as the situation being what it is it's not an easy thing to implement but still as a as an exercise of curriculum making which will have some effect for us it's a good idea to develop this curriculum so with that let me just tell you that I just noted listed a few points now when I say positive points I should put in the bracket supposedly positive points I'm not claiming there is research evidence for this or anything that's not there seem to be positive points like this and I'll run through this list which is entirely a pedestrian for most of you so interest and motivation historical narratives generate interest and motivation so it's obviously obvious point stories of great scientists and their work can be a source of inspiration and so this does happen to many many students wanting to do well in science however also came what exposed to history of physics much much later in my career and when I first got exposed all of this it was just mind boggling and it was so exciting but it's amazing that in my own career at university in Delhi I never had any exposure to anything else so I mean this it just generates interest in the subject it's an obvious point demystification of science it demystifies science you see that the scientists even the great scientists can go wrong and if you really go through it the history in some detail you no longer think that the scientific enterprise is done by some other people and that you have this respect you feel that you can also be part of it propagating science related propagating science related values this is of course very debatable but I don't want to enter that debate I think all of you probably better inform than I this that history of science some scientists feel can propagate science related values such as this etc but most the current philosophy of science completely I mean it's debates this in fact rubbish is this point they don't think that scientists follow all these values so so it's a debatable point take it or leave it metro perfect is only this certainly is true this is what is known as the nature of science so use of nature of science you see it is dynamic and open-ended etc also you view science as a social endeavor that concepts boundaries of class religion country etc and so some kind of sociological dimension of science does that if not explicitly implicitly developed look through history of science perspectives on the nature of science the methodology of science emerges implicitly we also learn that as science progresses our ideas on the so-called scientific method also change so this discipline called philosophy of science history of science is a good most natural context for bringing out the philosophical feelings of science now this is something that should interest scientists also they are understanding the content of science better this is the point that will sell HOS for science otherwise the other points may not in the curriculum makers especially in India may not get so much important point that historical approach to science education can actually improve and deepen students and this I know from personal experience it is indeed true and to get evidence for this is maybe very hard and some you will find that handbook large number of articles with done proper studies of these matters but I think it is definitely true that if you do historical approach seriously it does deepen your understanding of science a significant observation in this regard is that several areas there are interesting parallels between students spontaneous conceptions can make history descriptions so this is one thing but this is not the only thing this I find this is even more important critical understanding of science when you look through the conceptual trajectories of various content topics it is only then that you realize the the importance of those historical breakthroughs and so on when you go through when you see alternative models and alternative viewpoints and then one of that succeeded then your critical understanding of the concept itself improves and this is most important and I think to people who want to do science well it is also important as well as people who want to be science education so both of them examples from history of science now this will take too much time so I will just run through it since I work there too much time another 10-15 minutes right so I will just tell you I prepared these skepticism what are they called when and when right historical it is not exactly the final form it is more for speaking to students but this kind of we have written there you know various things come through in this so let us see this is a very well known topic I think a lot of physics education research numerous dozen scores probably hundreds of articles on this concept of force that is started in so called this material from both research papers as well as good books later on that and we can prepare capsule and there is no doubt that such capsules will give a better impression of the notion of force and also the other related matters in nature of science so for example I start with the widely prevalent student's notion is that force is always required to keep a body in motion and later they will ask you this motion is of course rooted in our experience of bodies I will run through this because it will take a long time I want to say that I want to say that how to do that this you see this insight that came in physics and why do students make this mistake the obvious point is it is not an easy matter and for 2000 years people believed it to be so and it is an extremely revolutionary insight given by Galileo Newton from that they are speaking that rest and uniform motion are equivalent it is a huge insight and it was not it was not had by even a great man in history and history so now the capsule goes through the historical physics which I don't have time to go through most of you know about it historical physics had this category natural movement and the violent movement category which is no longer there in physics anymore and the natural movement is the spontaneous motion towards its natural place and the this is the natural motion and this how the the biggest force will fall the other category is violent movement for which you can roughly say if he said forces proportion to pass in velocity though he did not say it in so explicit terms but we may say that even this what he meant and this agree with the spontaneous ideas of children so what happens is if you go in through detail you go to the nuances of this and then you see that this force proportion to velocity syndrome is not just pure it is totally but there is hidden in it another motion most students have that motion and I have devised some I mean we have these problems and we have put this in NCRT textbook also this one time it is a very interesting problem which immediately most students go wrong except the ones who have been alerted on it and if you broke the students then you might feel it is an Aristotelian notion that force you know the students say that the force is in the direction of the incoming ball and so on which therefore we might conclude it is an Aristotelian thinking but actually this is not so which is not Aristotelian and students are more likely to carry notions which are known as impetus-theoretic notions so after Aristotle there was an impetus-theoretic notion which held sway for a long time and this is a typical response of a student and this was exactly the idea of impetus-theoretic during the upward journey the question is what happens to the ball during the upward journey there are two forces acting on the body one due to gravity and the other the force needed to throw it off the second dominates in the upward journey at the Apernos the initial force has spent itself out of the body that was integrated now this is actually if you tell this to a physics teacher you will tell the student himself but actually it is a very very natural response and it arose in history as I told you in the Middle Ages when impetus-theoretic notions came to replace Aristotelian notions and it is very interesting for Aristotle the violent moment had to have an external force whereas for impetus-theoretic people it was an internal force motion is due to internal and you know now when you go to Newtonian mechanics you see this tremendous insight it is agreeing with Aristotle's notion that motion is due to external so Newton had to correct from the internal force to external force a huge huge conceptual transition so when you go through history then you realize but if you start the chapter of motion with Newton's second law you can't possibly realize what a huge conceptual change needed and what a huge milestone was when Newton said that it was proportional to acceleration so something that is told in one line in a book in a class 11 book actually has so much of you know conceptual termos actually if you go through that then you realize the importance of that and in fact I have quoted even Galileo was not free from such impetus-theoretic motions we feel Galileo discovered the law of first law and so on but actually Galileo's early writings show wrong flawed reasonings and in fact this quote is motion that's almost the same as what a student is writing to say so this is the capsule which tells you the great importance of going through history so that just where the innovation was just where the milestone was gets clearer in the process of course science gets denistrified you know that the great people also made mistakes so there are many other things another capsule which again I will run through very quickly is early 30s of vision and children's ideas now this capsule I have taken almost completely from that beautiful book on physics the human adventure by horizon and brush therefore at the end it's a beautiful book and at least physics students simply everybody should read that book because it it gives you historical context to the content of physics and chemistry and a lot of chemistry so this capsule actually is taken from that accepted from that there were two theories of vision exhibition theory and information theory exhibition theory means ice and salt light and information means the present theory, current theory there are many ones as I won't go through them but the exhibition theory when a person like Euclid says it he gave a very convincing argument for exhibition theory to see a needle you must see it directly as you cannot see it you must actively send rays from the eye in the alternative information picture the needle is sending always then you should be able to see it as long as your eyes are open whether or not you're looking at it directly so the idea behind this capsule is that the wrong theories also had very very convincing arguments a point that is that I think students think terms of physics chemistry students that it should not they should not feel that whatever is the correct thing that's being taught was there's obviously it was not so I mean it was one of the alternatives and the other alternatives were also equally appealing then what happened then what was the clinching argument so when you understand that there were many attractive alternatives and then there was a clinching argument or an experiment then of course your criticality about that concept improves and you understand it better then you don't take it for granted that well that's it is so that's the idea that I won't go through it it also brings in multi-cultural this capsule brings in the multi-cultural that's all did not happen in Europe for example optics was a very strong point of Arabian science and some very beautiful arguments both on the side of extramission and an intramission were done by Arabian physicists scientists at that time it was very very interesting then what happened that's the point and why did intramission succeed extramission had a number of problems but a very key step was taken by Alhazan you see the earlier idea was when they said intramission they thought that the object is sending out its three-dimensional copies of the just one point which now we take for granted which was a huge huge breakthrough he said no no it's not three point of a small region of radiance in our direction just this little difference and intramission succeeded so when you understand that then you understand the importance of in particular the breakthrough it was of course once that breakthrough was there still he could not still he could not complete the picture because there would be a jumble of rays so many rays are coming from the right how do you get the object base then it was combined by Kepler with the then knowledge of lens the point is the knowledge of lens lensing as an optical property was not known to even these earlier people so Kepler's what started with the lensing was completed by Kepler so it also gives a very nice multicultural view of how science progresses and so on so anyway then once again this capsule tells you how the ideas spontaneous ideas of children often match this thing and in fact in this particular topic we have been working by Jayashree Rangas and resident driver several decades ago so which clearly I mean children have very interesting ideas one of the interesting ideas I found was this that interestingly vision is explained differently depending on whether the object is self-luminous or not this is very very natural it's a very natural idea the self-luminous object the exclamation theory you know exclamation theory will not make sense the self-luminous object so children spontaneously change their ideas depending on the situation a bright object I mean who would say that the eye is sending out obviously the left is coming so children are adopting the exclamation theory whereas an object which is not self-luminous eye is sending out so very very spontaneous and this very nice this word which explains how children also change their theories depending on the situation the spontaneous conceptions and it's not that all of it will be replicated in history but a lot of it is one thing the third piece that I prepared recently was this Florist on theory I think you had a lecture at DCC people so I won't go through it this once again this capsule tells you the points first of all that some of the great chemists refused to accept the new theory and then stuck on to their old theory so you know conservatism of scientists despite the contrary evidence etc coonian ideas and so on but this I unfortunately I don't have time it is it almost reminds you of current physics where things are fixed if you don't get the data you put in something else in the theory somehow to fix to I mean it goes on I'm not saying it's not everything I think goes on of course until a better theory comes up so florist on theory there were so many things to be explained why does the volume of air decrease when it burns and so on and they the florist on supporters gave very very interesting you know they fixed the problem to very interesting innovations and so of course ultimately a sort of paradigm change had happened because because Lavazer looked at some other problem he was not talking about he looked at the weight problem so sometimes the it comes via something entirely so Lavazer get the weight problem and then the difficulties seem disappear now this fact students have a similar point of view I mean if a matter of a thing burns then the natural spontaneous idea is to think that something is going to decay breakdown see one name means some decay this is spontaneous idea chemistry now modern chemistry says just opposite burning synthesis rather than position so once again the modern theory is against what you would naturally think chemistry so these are some of the capsits I will suggest if you have time some time later go through that and once again the final point that it's not that Lavazer this he fix the problem but in a certain framework and his although he solve the problem of burning and oxidation etc he still was within the old framework of caloric heat theory so you can make innovations even when some of your other frameworks it's not that everything has to be perfect just as the second law of thermodynamics was discovered in a completely wrong view point the caloric view also are now discovered you know arrived at the basic insight of second law without even properly knowing what heat is so these ideas give you a little better feeling about the content of your subject apart from of course all the other uses I told you teaching nature of science through history now I have explained to you the capsule study content and a few other things but it is supposed to play when I say plays I once again must say that I I don't know if there is evidence there are a lot of articles saying that it does improve and there has been evidence on Alton's book that it has it did improve students perception of physics and so on and enrollment improved in physics and so on so there has been some evidence but I'm not quite sure how much is the evidence that it really does it's intuitively one feels it would do so nature of science is part of philosophy of science etc and ideas about nature of science actually implicit in science textbooks these ideas often portray a live idealistic view of how science is actually done in particular they do not take into account the more mature perspectives on philosophy of science so anyway to cut the long story short what should we do instead of my telling you the or talking about the aspects of philosophy of science in a recent article in fact I have written on this topic so but the preference is not yet there anyway so I mean this more recent article is a little improvement on what I have written here but let's go with this this debate I found in this Taylor and a fairly good compact summary of what we should tell about the nature of science you know the science curriculum see it's a very debatable topic and there are opinions ranging from one end to the other so obviously all those controversies and difficulties you know controversial points now some people have been saying that they can be discussed within the classroom but perhaps it's not as practical so practical might be possible to some extent so in any case about nature of science being a philosophical topic we can't import all those philosophical complexities in school classrooms but what people are thinking that still something can be there is some irreducible consensus despite the range of opinion there is some irreducible over that can be told and that should be told so that should be a cultivated or that should come out there and some people are saying that should be so that's the sort of thing meaningful observation is not possible without the pre-existing so this is what is known as theory-ladenness of observations etc nature does not give evidence simple enough to allow one and then be less so for example first point of our one is I don't think good content good physics students know about this point and are aware of this point I think it's a great contribution of philosophy of science too to improving the content to improving improving understanding of our own content I personally don't think these things as opposed to each other that philosophy of science one thing and content is another there is nothing like that I mean you can use it to improve the understanding if you have content some scientist sometimes may have this impression but this is unnecessary okay we should but first let us focus on the content I think that point is somewhat I don't personally agree with that content of science itself can be improved to both philosophy of science and understanding the content definitely gains by now how to put it how much you should do that's a matter in my personal opinion you should norm off the content the higher secondary level quite substantially to allow for such things this is my personal opinion but of course one there will have to be some basic content so since I was the author position paper somebody quoted I think Swathi it said two things that you should have nature of science but also you should have you should input the core content should also come through at the higher secondary level balance of this there is no doubt about and that balance the medium to me seems like the history and philosophy of science which can strike a balance and I think it has also a possibility of acceptance by the states older scientists policy makers so I really have a very positive feeling about history and philosophy science playing a very important role in improving the curriculum science curriculum especially at the higher secondary level anyway nature does not give evidence simple enough to allow one and then we was the under determination of theory as they say scientific theories are not inductions but hypotheses which go imaginatively and necessarily beyond observations so this most so what the great scientists have said that it is not science is not just induction from experiments scientific theories cannot be proved the the falsifiably poppers falsifiably ideas scientific knowledge is not static and convergent shared training is an essential component this school inside shared training is an set the paradigm compliance is done through our graduate schools so this is saying that yeah this is the way it is done it is not that all scientists would otherwise agree it is almost smacks of ideal you know brainwashing students to there is an element of truth in that yeah in our graduate schools you the way students are trained they have certain views about the content as well as scientific reasoning is not itself compelling without appeal to social, moral, spiritual, and cultural sources scientists do not draw incontestable deductions but make complex expert judgment this this point number 8 definitely lay public especially in our country needs to be sensitized to I mean some people have very strange ideas about science as well there is a problem science will tell you what to do and so on so very naive views about science science on any complex system can never give you very clear cut deductions so scientists have to make expert judgments sometimes science is almost three lines you know equated to just logic especially in lay public science means logic they do not understand that it is not a logical deductions expert judgment and because of which point number 9 disagreement is always possible so these are some of the points I found this summary very nice and my recent article I sort of took on this summary and then next minded a little bit how should we communicate these ideas so one strategy that I should prepare but now my current thinking is that these minutes also do not really have the proper book should be there complete content because if you tell these few capsules where people find it interesting and that is about it so the entire whole curriculum at high secondary level I locate or I suggest that should be sort of historicize should make clear science philosophy science content and the plus two level very nice so that is better than of course you should not have now I conclude by some criticism of this there are some opinions about this these are sort of not I mean these are not quotes this is something I have abstracted from my reading of this book especially Michael this is a huge handbook and most people may be in their opinion may be a linear combination with different coefficients of these three opinions so one opinion is that opinion of purest in science who will sort of debunk this idea of history of science scientific knowledge especially of physical sciences completely based on this means we can explain a scientific concept or theory by recursive logic mathematics and the present experiment there is no need to dig up history teach conflict and raw ideas and confuse the students in fact some of the people who are implemented HOS curriculum also warn you against this that you know too much of doing that may not may confuse students you have to be very judicious purest in science says what has science to do with history and science has a historical discipline physics we should start from modern things and teach the logic and say what is the experiment of evidence for it a very dehumanized version of science but that's what many people say can the pragmatists say even if historical approach may have some merit there is simply no time in the science there are too many important topics to be covered and any history long to be at the cost of this it's more important to teach modern rapidly growing body of knowledge than where dwell on old and outdated ideas all one can do is insert this is the approach of ncrt class 11, 12 books and perhaps this is not really HOS inspired at all this is alright you put some photographs of scientists etc and give this my solution to this problem is as I told you that much of the content of present plus 2 in India can be shifted to undergraduate level because in any case at the undergraduate level we redo those things a little better so it's a bit of a especially in our country the syllabus is much more than elsewhere I mean especially in USA the syllabus our syllabus is much more so it's very content heavy it can be reduced because much of all that you do in plaster is done little more mathematically in physics little more in detail at the undergraduate level what is undergraduate? physics curriculum nothing but plus 2 curriculum expanded that's all it is so why why not shift some of the things at the undergraduate level and this because a large number of students this might attract students to science at the plus 2 level and so on so I think this is important the purest in history of science I have a very different criticism they say actually you you are spoiling the history of science by teaching such things your history and the service of science history because what happens history is very rich and you are just picking up the antecedents of what turned out to be the correct idea and this is not history this is bad history they say so these are purest but I don't think this is a very strong community strong people and this I think the voice the first voice is not strong despite the criticism of this this learning and teaching can improve if we go beyond mere tokenism in the history of science as an important resource for science for the purposes of cultivating interest in science anticipating and addressing students so I am summarizing whatever I said developing critical understanding of subject and developing mature perspectives of the nature of science I will just quote one author of course these benefits are a very difficult English sentence so I won't read it the simplified English sentence is a problem in simple words at least approach can be useful provided we sensibly choose topics that are amenable to this approach but as I told you my more decent thinking is that this is not so in fact you should somehow properly integrated all topics a kind of modern version of Alten and although a great book still is two verbose for Indian students we put two verbose and so a little more compact book and that book is only for physics and bit of chemistry but you should have physics, chemistry, bio books at that time so the NCRT authorities suggest to them humbly that they should go in for a division of the curriculum based on this to be as thank you these are the references this is either Matthew says a handbook I give this yeah this reference 6 is very very important it's full of very nice articles that is a whole ton brush physics that you want to thank you very much I think though we are running out of time we'll have a few questions actually throughout the talk you get saying higher secondary and I can see that's the material you're covering but from my experience I can say that it's actually especially if you look at the kind of introductory concepts that go into middle school and maybe even upper primary that it's really history of science as a way of teaching science is extremely useful and I'm coming at it from this conceptual change framework where you are actually making a transition from the concept to cover misconceptions so I'm picking up on it and because of that I don't really see this tension at least at this early schooling in the middle school level of content versus history of science I don't see that at all I see it as a way of teaching science which is hugely successful one of the texts that you quoted that also talks about psychologically why this is important I just wanted to comment on that I agree I'm just saying that you see that actually the lower level tension is much less because you are not obliged to go too much it is when you go into little more thorough detail of history of science that is where the tension develops and what will happen to the content if it works so at the higher secondary level and the UG level it's well not impossible because I don't see anybody adding physics curriculum later we agree to replace the standard subjects I'm being practical at this say something that you should be done but is it at all practical which entirely is historical it should be a great idea but there is just too much of content demand at the higher secondary level I think in any case there is a feeling in our country that it's too much to students of burden there used to be some a little out of touch a bit but several years ago it used to be there was a they are afraid to reduce the content at the higher secondary level so at the I say my common intuition tells me it has some trance of success at the at the secondary I think NCRT has tried and but you are not really able to do you know the real real uses of history of science is where the deeper content level is also assimilated better through history that comes a little later and we have to so I'm opposed to the feeling that you know it will be at the expense of content and that is best demonstrated at the higher secondary level to begin with so it's a very practical project I think people should undertake or in the higher secondary level I would also like to just sort of one of course I agree with what Jon Snow was saying that I think right from the beginning even when we are looking even in environment to studies and we tried some of those things even when we were writing this that it must really be integrated and incorporated we need to wait for that stage but my second sort of question is that it's very crucial that you are saying that we should really rethink of how history is being taught and I agree with what you are saying but I say that this still doesn't look at the social forces that was really happening in detail even in terms of the contributions that were being made and we are still looking at only the different kinds of contested theories but not so much in detail in terms of the social conditions under which those were happening for instance Brunowski's treatment is different from what many others might treat because he is really looking at the social pressures on the scientists and that scientists were located within a time, within a society and that's how it came about so I think that added to that also it's crucial that's an excellent idea that is the kind of thing I had meant see what what I have done is some capsules written in two or three days what you are saying is absolutely important and only then with the nature of science among properties connections with society and so on the importance of sociocultural norms which which enable science to grow and all that that can come only not just this, what I have done is just content and alternative theories are regarding content but then I would it should be in the social sociocultural view there should be there should be description of that so it needs a lot more work I hope you would you would sort of initiate that and I'd be so very happy to work on that that project my favorite is homey mass entire all these younger people should do it because it has content expertise as well as such a good educational and cognitive science expertise philosophy of expertise I think there is no other I am sure in Delhi there may be there are some very sending people in Delhi but institution wise there are many this institution is best suited for the purpose but just in addition to that I was just wondering whether the social industry of science into the teaching of science but also the sociology of science because we kind of shy away from shy away from the sociology of science thinking that you know it is very critical of science but I think at the school level and at middle school level high high secondary level it is very important because we don't need sociology as a discipline in schools I think it would be important for us to start engaging with the society of science along with the history of science which was just minding what you do I thought that was a point which I agreed I think that was a point I agree I mean the social aspect you know instead of saying the moment you say sociology of science philosophy of science you know some people especially scientists scientists better to say that we should say the sociopulteral norms that enable science to grow and the moment you have these high funding subjects then the scientist's response is when you take another make another topic which is high secondary called sociology and includes sociology of science that is a response and being very practical I totally agree with you in an ideal unrestricted environment I will say definitively but we have the operating and practical environment where we have to do things which are at least which have some chance of acceptance so that is why we have to try to balance because if you start in sociology of science and then you know various and even go to radical sociologist say this kind of thing where we will stop you know when they mention that there are and the book will have to take a neutral we take some central centrist position in these matters because any radical position will not be acceptable ok thank you thank you sir will Kumar and I think good agenda for the young scientists of HBCSE I think I am going to skip much of my summing up but I think the day was very very interesting and very instructive to me I was very fortunate to chair the sessions we began with Samitha Rangpal's presentation she spoke I mean she touched on many issues but they are all connected with science education for all science and math education for all and science and math education for life and in that sense I think she really referred to democratizing of STM education she also then referred to certain enabling developments especially the right to education act the NCF machine particle in work and then continuous comprehensive evaluation and then I went on to talk about her personal involvement in HSTP the Hoshantabad Science Teaching project then the NCRT's primary mathematics and TVS programs and then of course we discussed the challenges in front of us next to that was Professor Deshir Ramdas and also Subramanian's presentation and they really talked about putting together practice and theory and especially Subramanian added the identity element to it to say briefly he's he said that rather than the generalized pedagogy which is normally taken to be independent of the subject one would really platform subject based pedagogy next to that we had the presentation by Swati Swati Mehrotram and she talked about her own work which was a case of game based in Singapore classrooms it was a digital game that she talked about and of course she had the point to make that innovations in generally are not taken up by teaching community very easily but of course there could be variety of reasons and we then found the discussion we had then Swati talking about science, technology, society and environment education she reviewed the current things and then talked about her own research especially in relation to what students think about commercial servicing and how she analyzed that the two levels and I think it was quite an instructive presentation and I think it's very she also suggested what could be done to incorporate such issues in the present curriculum lastly it was Prasarankumar who as usual in his inimitable style talked about history of science and its relevance to teaching science in fact he has been advocating that this has to be incorporated in our curriculum in a very positive case for it and he gave very very interesting examples the Aristotle concept of force how we see things and so on and then of course he presented key ideas about the nature of science so on and on I think it was a very interesting day we had also lot of participation from the flow it was very interesting because it really added to the discussion and I wish more such seminars organized more often and I must compliment Hormibaba Center for Science Education for arranging this seminar and Dr. Rajgopal for having taken initiative in this respect so thank you all of you for being part of this important seminar Subramaniam has to make some announcements thank you so much Dr. Sabradha so excellent sessions with excellent discussion and nice summing up just couple of small announcements this is volume which is Commod, Feminists and Science and the volume too which is going to be released soon it contains a contribution by Chitra and Suga so I will just share it to you so that is one of the last publications as far as I know and this second volume is coming out and the first volume is already available we will find more details of it outside on the board I think this Anupas mode is and that is the title of the article which will come out in the second popular percussion is published sorry it will be distributed available through thank you second thing is that during the lunch break some of you may be aware we had a small sapling planting session and these were Tulsi plants I believe of nine different varieties and that is very nice it is to give a flip to a small medicinal patch patch of medicinal plants that we are planning and this is very much I think after Chitra's heart and so thank you for the initiative Raju, Dr. Raj Gopal Mr. Chitra's husband I took the initiative and thank you very much for having us then I invite you to have tea and biscuits outside and return quickly we will have the release function starting at 5.15 followed by high key