A Theater-Based Device for Training Teachers on the Nature of Science

Abstract

This article presents and discusses an innovative pedagogical device designed for training pre-service teachers on the nature of science. We endorse an approach according to which aspects of the nature of science should be explicitly discussed in order to be understood by learners. We identified quantum physics, and more precisely the principles of uncertainty and complementarity, as a rich topic suitable for such a discussion. Our training device consists in preparing and staging a new type of theater, the “scientific experimental theater,” based both on the characteristics of Brecht’s theater and Kelly’ cyclic theory of learning. This device was implemented with a group of eight pre-service teachers. According to our observations, the approach favors their involvement and provides them with a frame for expressing their doubts and confronting their points of view. By analyzing their discussion, we identified several aspects of the nature of science that the pre-service teachers raised spontaneously: subjectivity, the social and cultural embeddedness of science, the construction and status of models, and the role of questioning in the development of science. The implemented device therefore appears as an interesting means for stimulating a rich discussion on the nature of science. This study opens new avenues for teachers’ and students’ training devices aimed at developing a critical and reflective stance on science.

Appendix. Play Adapted from the play “Copenhagen” by Frayn (1998)

1.1 CHARACTERS

Niels Bohr

Werner Heisenberg

Narrator 1

Narrator 2

1.2 OPENING

Narrator 1 explains the play (text prepared by the participants)

1.3 ACT 1

Bohr and Heisenberg walk and talk at Bohr’s house in Copenhagen

BOHR: From 1924 to 1927.

HEISENBERG: We had the complementarity.

BOHR: We had the theory of uncertainty. And in the end we had quantum mechanics.

HEISENBERG: My head started to become clear and I had a clear picture of how physics of the atom should look like. Suddenly I realized that we had to limit it to what we could actually observe. We cannot see the electrons inside the atom... All we can see are the effects that the electrons produce, through the light they reflect... Its meaning is represented by a mathematical equation.

Bohr responds a little annoyed.

BOHR: You think that as long as math works, meaning does not matter?

HEISENBERG: The meaning of a thing is what it means in mathematics.

BOHR: But in the end, remember that we always have to be able to explain everything to other people!

Heisenberg tries to construct a new explanation.

HEISENBERG: Hmmm... So let us try to explain the uncertainty as follows. Let us pretend Copenhagen is an atom and you are an electron.

BOHR: Yes, yes ...

HEISENBERG: You are wandering around the city somewhere in the dark, no one knows where.

Bohr starts to move around the stage alone, confirm the Heisenberg character’s orientation.

HEISENBERG: You are here, there, you are everywhere and nowhere. I am a photon. A quantum of light. I am sent into the dark to find you. There’s only one way to find you, when I hit you...

Heisenberg bumps into Bohr causing him to move.

HEISENBERG: But what happened? Look, you slowed down, you strayed. You are no longer walking madly as you were before.

1st Interruption:

Narrator 2 questions the audience: Do we change the object when trying to get closer to it?

1.4 ACT 2

BOHR: But, Heisenberg, you were also diverted! If people can see where you have walked until you find me, then they can find out where I should have walked! The problem is knowing what happened to you! Because to understand how people see you, we have to treat you not as a particle, but as a wave.

HEISENBERG: I know. I put this in a post-scriptum in my article.

At this scene can be attributed a certain moment of humor

BOHR: Everyone remembers the article. No one remembers post-scriptum. But the question is fundamental. Particles are things, complete in themselves! Waves are disturbances in something else!

HEISENBERG: I know! Complementarity!... It’s there in the post-scriptum.

BOHR: They are one thing or another. Either they are particles or they are waves. They cannot be both at the same time! We have to choose one way or another to look at them. But as we choose, we can no longer know everything about them.

2nd Interruption:

Narrator 2 questions the audience: How much of subjectivity is there in the observation process?

1.5 ACT 3

HEISENBERG: I know! I know! Complementarity! ... Of course, the place where you go when you walk is determined by the various physical forces acting on you. But it is also determined by the impenetrable whim of moment to moment. So we cannot fully understand your behavior without looking at you both ways at the same time.

BOHR: You have never fully and completely accepted complementarity. Accepted?

HEISENBERG: It works! That’s what matters. It works, it works, it works!

BOHR: My dear Heisenberg ...

Heisenberg interrupts his friend’s speech with another example of complementarity.

HEISENBERG: I’ll give you another example of complementarity. I am your enemy; but I am also your friend. I am a danger to humanity; but I am also your guest. I am a particle; but also a wave. We have a series of obligations to the world at large; and we have other obligations, which can never be reconciled with others, with our fellow countrymen, our neighbors, our friends, our family, our children. All we can do is look after and see what happened.

BOHR: That’s true. This is complementarity.

Bohr puts his arm on Heisenberg’s shoulder and walks out together.

1.6 CLOSURE

Narrator 1 summarizes the main points raised by the audience and the play.