Abstract
This chapter departs from previous handbooks’ chapters on language in science education, such as those written by Sutton (1998) and Carlsen (2007), in that it introduces a research program that specifically addresses the relationship between language and modeling processes in science education. The field will be reviewed taking into account the science education research work from Brazilian, French, Spanish, and British schools and other contributions. This review will consider the perspectives used to understand and depict language, models and modeling in science education. In addition, examples will be offered from the research work that point to the ways language and modeling are related in the science classroom. The international handbook (Fraser and Tobin 1998) contains a chapter on models and modeling in science education (Gilbert and Boutler 1998) that was not included in the most recent handbook, published in 2007. We would like to revive this perspective and propose a model-based view of science education in which language is central in science teaching and learning processes.
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Acknowledgment
The authors acknowledge financial support from the Minister of Education and Science
(MEC-SEJE006–15589-CO2–02) and EDU1009-13890-C02-02 (subprograma EDUC) and the Generalitat de Catalunya
(2008ARIE00063).
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Espinet, M., Izquierdo, M., Bonil, J., De Robles, S.L.R. (2012). The Role of Language in Modeling the Natural World: Perspectives in Science Education. In: Fraser, B., Tobin, K., McRobbie, C. (eds) Second International Handbook of Science Education. Springer International Handbooks of Education, vol 24. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-9041-7_89
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