Search

We explored the potential for addressing nature of science through a historic narrative about disagreement between researchers concerning a socio-scientific issue, incidence of juvenile thyroid cancer following the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident. The narrative was developed from authentic sources and tested in two cycles. Eight groups of three to four high-school students were audio recorded. Transcripts were analyzed regarding what nature of science emerged in the discussions and what understanding about NOS could be discerned, using three complementary NOS-frameworks (Consensus-NOS, Whole Science-NOS, FRA-NOS). Together, the student groups touched upon 19 different NOS-themes as they tried to make sense of the disagreement related in the narrative. All groups addressed a common core of NOS-themes, most of which were central to the narrative itself, although some themes that were not part of the narrative also emerged. Students displayed a basic understanding of the tentative, empirical, and subjective nature of science together with the role of evidential relevance and completeness of evidence related to the choice of scientific methods. On the other hand, students did not reckon with peer review as a means for establishing knowledge and resolving disagreement. Moreover, although students readily accepted disagreement as a basic property of science, they had difficulty handling this disagreement when coping with the SSI in the narrative. We discuss how the combination of history of science-in-the-making and SSI in narrative form offers opportunities to teach NOS without risking simplified messages of how scientific knowledge develops or how science can be used to address socio-scientific issues.

Socioscientific issues (SSI) concern social issues, often lacking simple solutions, that relate to science and often also risk controversies. SSIs have become an established part of science education, aiming to teach students not only about content knowledge but also about the nature of science and to offer them practice in argumentation and decision making. We performed a scoping review of the literature on SSI in science education research, in order to investigate if the topics covered would lean themselves to education about risk, and if risk is raised in these works. Using Web of Science we identified 296 empirical publications and 91 theoretical or review publications about SSI teaching in science education. The empirical publications covered studies performed in primary to tertiary school, most commonly upper secondary school (32%). The most frequently taught SSI themes were nature conservation, biotechnology, and climate change. Despite that these, as most of the other identified themes, clearly are connected to risk analysis and risk management, few publications raised the concept of risk and the methods of risk analysis. In fact, almost half (empirical: 48%, theoretical: 49%) did not mention risk at all. We argue that SSIs present an opportunity for risk researchers to engage with educators to incorporate risk in school science education and to contribute in developing teaching materials suitable toward that aim., QC 20210611

Polyploidization is an important mechanism for sympatric speciation in plants. Still, we know little about whether plant polyploidization leads to insect host shifts, and if novel interactions influence habitat and trait selection in plants. We investigated herbivory by the flower bud gall-forming midge Dasineura cardaminis on tetraploids and octoploids of the herb Cardamine pratensis. Gall midges attacked only octoploid plant populations, and a transplantation experiment confirmed this preference. Attack rates were higher in populations that were shaded, highly connected or occurred along stream margins. Within populations, late-flowering individuals with many flowers were most attacked. Galling reduced seed production and significantly influenced phenotypic selection on flower number. Our results suggest that an increase in ploidy may lead to insect host shifts and that plant ploidy explains insect host use. In newly formed plant polyploids, novel interactions may alter habitat preferences and trait selection, and influence the further evolution of cytotypes.

Polyploidization has been suggested to be a common mechanism for plant speciation. Polyploidy is associated with changes in plant traits and altered habitat preference. Antagonistic and mutualistic animals are known to discriminate between plants based on variation in such plant traits, suggesting that interactions may have an important role in divergence of plant polyploids after the polyploidization. In this thesis, I investigated the effect of insect herbivores on divergence of plant polyploids in a system consisting of the predispersal seed predator butterfly Anthocharis cardamines, the bud gall forming midge Dasineura cardaminis, and tetraploids and octoploids of the herb Cardamine pratensis. Octoploid populations occurred more often in shaded and nongrazed habitats than tetraploids. Octoploid plants were larger and had fewer but larger flowers than tetraploids. Butterfly attack rates were higher in tetraploid than in octoploid populations, whereas the gall midge attacked only octoploids. These differences were associated with higher abundance of butterflies in sunny habitats and gall midges in shaded habitats. In contrast to the pattern at the population level, octoploid flower shoots were more likely to be attacked by the butterfly in sympatric populations. Also trait selection differed between ploidy levels, both in the absence and in the presence of herbivores. In a field experiment, butterfly preference did not alter the trait selection in tetraploids. In octoploids, the two herbivores did not change selection considered separately. However, their joint effect resulted in significant selection for smaller flower shoots and reduced selection on number of flowers. This thesis demonstrates that differences in habitat preference and phenotypic plant traits between polyploid cytotypes can lead to altered interactions with herbivores. Such differences in interactions with animals may alter not only the relative fitness of cytotypes but also trait selection withi