Abstract
A teacher and a college student explore experimental science and its history by reading historical texts, and responding with replications and experiments of their own. A curriculum of ever-widening possibilities evolves in their ongoing interactions with each other, history, and such materials as pendulums, flame, and resonant singing tubes. Narratives illustrate how questions, observations, and developments emerge in class interactions, along with the pair’s reflections on history and research. This study applies the research pedagogy of critical exploration, developed by Eleanor Duckworth from the interviewing of Piaget and Inhelder and exploratory activities of the 1960s Elementary Science Study. Complexity as the subject matter opens up possibilities which foster curiosity among participants. Like Galileo, Tyndall, Xu Shou, and others, this student recurrently came upon new physical behaviors. His responses to these phenomena enabled him to learn from yet other unexpected happenings. These explorations have implications for opening up classrooms to unforeseen possibilities for learning.
Teaching . . . is more about a conscientious participation in expanding the space of the possible by creating the conditions for the emergence of the not-yet-imaginable. . . . Teaching, like learning, is not about convergence onto a pre-established truth, but about divergence - about broadening what can be known and done. In other words, the emphasis is not on what is, but what might be brought forth. Teaching thus comes to be a participation in a recursively elaborative process of opening up new spaces of possibility while exploring current spaces. (Davis & Sumara, 2007, p. 64)
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Cavicchi E. (2006a). Nineteenth century developments in coiled instruments and experiences with electromagnetic induction. Annals of Science, 63: 319–361
Cavicchi E. (2006b). Faraday and Piaget: Experimenting in relation with the world. Perspectives on Science, 14: 66–96
Cavicchi E. (2007a). Mirrors, swinging weights, light-bulbs: Simple experiments and history help a class become a community. In: Heering, P. and Osewold, D. (eds) Constructing scientific understanding through contextual teaching, pp 47–63. Berlin, DL, Frank & Timme
Cavicchi, E. (2007b). Experimenting with mirrors; Recreating the Arabic Euclid. Presentation in Symposium with Son-Mey Chiu, Fiona McDonnell, Eleanor Duckworth, AERA, Chicago IL April 11.
Cavicchi, E. (2008a, in press). Charles Gafton Page’s experiment with a spiral conductor. Technology and Culture, 49(4).
Cavicchi, E. (2008b, in press). Historical experiments in students’ hands: Unfragmenting science through action and history. Science and Education, 17(7), 717–749.
Crawford E. (1993). A critique of curriculum reform: Using history to develop thinking. Physics Education, 28: 204–208
Davis B. and Sumara D. (2007). Complexity science and education: Reconceptualizing the teacher’s role in learning. Interchange, 38: 53–67
Duckworth, E. (2006a). Teaching as researching. In E. Duckworth (3rd ed.), “The having of wonderful ideas” and other essays on teaching and learning. New York, NY: Teacher’s College Press. (Original essay published in first edition, 1986)
Duckworth, E. (2006b). Twenty-four, forty-two and I love you: Keeping it complex. In E. Duckworth (3rd ed.), “The having of wonderful ideas” and other essays on teaching and learning. New York, NY: Teacher’s College Press. (Original essay published in second edition, 1991)
Duckworth, E. (2006c). Critical exploration in the classroom. In E. Duckworth (3rd ed.), “The having of wonderful ideas” and other essays on teaching and learning. New York, NY: Teacher’s College Press. (Original work published in 2005)
Eames, C. & Eames, R. (2000). Powers of ten and rough sketch. Vol. 1. The films of Charles and Ray Eames. DVD. Chatworth, CA: Image Entertainment.
Edison, T.A. (2004). The papers of Thomas A. Edison (R.V. Jenkins, Ed.). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press.
Elementary Science Study (ESS). (1965). Light and shadows. Watertown, MA: Educational Services Inc.
Elementary Science Study (ESS). (1966). Batteries and bulbs. Newton, MA: Educational Development Center.
Elementary Science Study (ESS). (1968). Sand. Newton, MA: Educational Development Center.
Elman B. (2005). On their own terms: Science in China, 1500-1900. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA
Elman B. (2006). A cultural history of modern science in China. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA
Faraday M. (1818). On the sounds produced by flame in tubes. The Journal of Science and the Arts (1817-1818) 5: 274–280
Faraday, M. (1861). The chemical history of a candle. Lecture 1. New York, NY: Harper Bros.
Galilei, G. (1999). Galileo’s notes on motion. Berlin, DL: Max Planck Institute for the History of Science. Available at: http://www.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/Galileo_Prototype/MAIN.HTM
Gooding D. (1990). Experiment and the making of meaning: Human agency in scientific observation and experiment. Kluwer, Dordrecht, NL
Giordano R. (2006). Singular beauty. MIT Museum, Cambridge, MA
Gu, M. (2007). Experiment and reflection assignment, SP726. May 18.
Hawkins, D. (2002a). Messing about in science. In D. Hawkins, The informed vision: Essays on learning and human nature. New York, NY: Agathon Press. (Original work published 1965)
Hawkins, D. (2002b). The informed vision: Essays on learning and human nature (2nd ed.). New York: NY: Agathon Press. (Original work published in 1974)
Heering, P. (1994). The replication of the torsion balance experiment: The inverse square law and its refutation by early 19th century German physicists. In C. Blondel & M. Dörries (Eds.), Restaging Coulomb: Usages, controverses et réplications autour de la balance de torsio (pp. 47–66). Florence, Italy: Leo S. Olschki.
Heering P. (2000). Getting shocks: Teaching secondary school physics through history. Science and Education, 9: 363–373
Heering P. (2007). Educating and entertaining: Using enlightenment experiments for teacher training. In: Heering, P. and Osewold, D. (eds) Constructing scientific understanding through contextual teaching, pp 65–81. Frank & Timme, Berlin, DL
Holmes F.L. (2004). Investigative pathways: Patterns and stages in the careers of experimental scientists. Yale University Press, New Haven, CT
Hofstein H. and Lunetta V. (2003). The laboratory in science education: Foundations for the twenty-first century. Science Education, 88: 28–54
Howard J. (2004). ’Physics and fashion:’ John Tyndall and his audiences in mid-Victorian Britain. Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science 35: 729–734
Ibn Al-Haytham. (1989). The optics of Ibn Al-Haytham (A.I. Sabra, Trans.). London: Warburg Institute.
Inhelder, B., Sinclair, H., & Bovet, M. (1974). Learning and the development of cognition (S. Wedgwood, Trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Leconte J. (1858). On the influence of musical sounds on the flame of a jet of coal-gas. Philosophical Magazine, 13: 234–239
Mayer A. (1878). Sound: Simple, entertaining and inexpensive experiments in the phenomena of sound. Appleton, New York, NY
Morrison, P. (1970). Experimenters in the classroom. In The Elementary science study reader (pp. 113–121). Newton MA: Elementary Science Study, 1970. (Original work published 1964)
Needham J. and Ling W. (1962). Science and civilization in China, Vol. 4. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK
Piaget J. (1964a). The child’s conception of the world. Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., London. (Original work published in 1926)
Piaget J. (1964b). The construction of reality in the child. Basic Books, New York, NY. (Original work published in 1937)
Piaget J. (1987a). Possibility and necessity, Vol. 1. The role of possibility in cognitive development. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, MN. (Original work published in 1981)
Piaget J. (1987b). Possibility and necessity. Vol. 2. The role of necessity in cognitive development. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, MN. (Original work published in 1983)
Rijke P.L. (1859). Notice of a new method of causing a vibration of air contained in a tube open at both ends. Philosophical Magazine, 17: 419–422
Settle T. (1996). Galileo’s experimental research. Max-Planek-Institut fur Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Berlin, DL
Steinle F. (1997). Entering new fields: Exploratory uses of experimentation. Philosophy of Science, Proceedings, 64: S65–S74
Sibum H.O. (1995). Reworking the mechanical value of heat: Instruments of precision and gestures of accuracy in early Victorian England. Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science, 26: 73–106
Staubermann K. (2007). Astronomers at work: A study of the replicability of 19th century astronomical practice. Verlag Harri Deutsch, Frankfurt am Main, DL
Tweney R. (2006). Discovering discovery: How Faraday found the first metallic colloid. Perspectives on Science, 14: 97–121
Tyndall J. (1857). On the sounds produced by the combustion of gases in tubes. Philosophical Magazine, S.4. 13: 473–479
Tyndall, J. (1889). Sound. New York, NY: Appleton. (Original work published in 1867) Available at: http://books.google.com/books?id=_3YLAAAAMAAJ&dq=tyndall+sound
Volta, A. (1800). On the electricity excited by the mere contact of conducting substances. Philosophical Transactions, 289–311.
Wright D. (2000). Translating Science: The transmission of western chemistry into late imperial China, 1840-1900. Leiden, Boston, MA
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Cavicchi, E. Opening Possibilities in Experimental Science and its History: Critical Explorations with Pendulums and Singing Tubes. Interchange 39, 415–442 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10780-008-9073-0
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10780-008-9073-0