Springer Engaging with Contemporary Challenges through Science Education Research: Selected papers from the ESERA 2019 Conference: 9 (Contributions from Science Education Research, 9)

This book starts with the premise that beauty can be an engine of transformation and authentic engagement in an increasingly complex world. It presents an organized picture of highlights from the 13th European Science Education Research Association Conference, ESERA 2019, held in Bologna, Italy. The collection includes contributions that discuss contemporary issues such as climate change, multiculturalism, and the flourishing of new interdisciplinary areas of investigation, including the application of cognitive neuroscience, artificial intelligence, and digital humanities to science education research. It also highlights learners’ difficulties engaging with socio-scientific issues in a digital and post-truth era. The volume demonstrates that deepening our understanding is the preferred way to address these challenges and that science education has a key role to play in this effort. In particular, the book advances the argument that the deep and novel character of these challenges requires a collective search for new narratives and languages, an expanding knowledge base and new theoretical perspectives and methods of research. The book provides a contemporary picture of science education research and looks to the theoretical and practical societal challenges of the future. From the Back Cover This book starts with the premise that beauty can be an engine of transformation and authentic engagement in an increasingly complex world. It presents an organized picture of highlights from the 13th European Science Education Research Association Conference, ESERA 2019, held in Bologna, Italy. The collection includes contributions that discuss contemporary issues such as climate change, multiculturalism, and the flourishing of new interdisciplinary areas of investigation, including the application of cognitive neuroscience, artificial intelligence, and digital humanities to science education research. It also highlights learners’ difficulties engaging with socio-scientific issues in a digital and post-truth era. The volume demonstrates that deepening our understanding is the preferred way to address these challenges and that science education has a key role to play in this effort. In particular, the book advances the argument that the deep and novel character of these challenges requires a collective search for new narratives and languages, an expanding knowledge base and new theoretical perspectives and methods of research. The book provides a contemporary picture of science education research and looks to the theoretical and practical societal challenges of the future. About the Author Olivia Levrini is Associate Professor in Physics Education and History of Physics at the Department of Physics and Astronomy of the University of Bologna, Italy. Her current research work concerns interdisciplinarity in STEM education, cognition and conceptual change, identity and processes of appropriation, instruction design on future-oriented STEM issues (climate change, artificial intelligence, quantum computing), educational reconstruction of advanced current topics in physics (thermodynamics, relativity, quantum physics). She served as Conference President at the 2019 ESERA conference.  Giulia Tasquier is Junior Assistant Professor in Physics Education at the Department of Physics and Astronomy of the University of Bologna, Italy. Her research interests include design and implementation of innovative teaching materials on modern physics and SSI; the correlation between knowledge and behaviour in climate change; the role of epistemological knowledge on models and modelling in teaching/learning physics; qualitative methods of data analysis; development of strategies, tools, and activities for transforming scientific knowledge into transversal skills about the future. She served as Conference Manager at the 2019 ESERA conference   Tamer Amin is currently Associate Professor of Science Education