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Background: Developing upper secondary school students' understanding of the nature of science and technology are important priorities in educational systems worldwide. More research is needed to better understand the conditions under which teaching and learning of epistemological insights become possible, as well as the tools that are necessary for this purpose. Purpose: This study investigates the potential impact of Explicit Epistemological Discourse (EED) in improving student understanding of the interrelationship between Science and Technology (S&T) through a combined inquiry-oriented and design-oriented teaching and learning activity sequence on Electromagnetic Properties of Materials. Sample: The participants were 16 year-old students from two intact classes (N = 37 and N = 26, respectively) in their last year of state schooling, in a European country, one year before selection of high school elective courses. Design and methods: We implemented two conditions of the activity sequence; one included EED activities on the interrelationship between S&T, the other condition included identical inquiry and design activities, with additional practice exercises substituting the reflection activities on EED. Pre-post tests and interviews evaluated students' understanding about the goals of S&T. Results: Students in the EED condition surpassed students in the non-EED condition. The results support the claim that students' awareness about the interrelationship between S&T is improved when integrating EED into classroom activities that are credibly authentic and relevant from the students' perspective. Conclusion: Discursive reflection activities have an important role to play in helping students appreciate aspects of the nature of science and the nature of technology as part of their science classes. The integration of epistemological insights in the objectives of science education and the findings of this study are particularly relevant for contemporary efforts to promote education for innovation and entrepreneurship.

We have reviewed the existing literature on teaching and learning about energy to develop an overview of the ongoing debate on conceptual aspects of the construct and also to highlight the issues that have emerged in approaches to designing teaching-learning sequences. Our review is informed by those aspects of the historical evolution of the construct of energy that reveal the significance of this topic for science education, and the ongoing debate in science education research about the relevance of energy forms and causal explanatory thinking as features of the use of energy in systems analysis. We elaborate briefly on the distinction between mechanisms and causes, and we outline why energy can only be used as a framework for mechanistic descriptions of system behaviour and not for causal explanations. Drawing on our review, we present an argument for introducing energy as a theoretical framework in the age range of 11-14 years. We illustrate this epistemic approach by outlining in brief the skeletal structure of an activity sequence. The main features of this proposed approach include the use of theories to create models of phenomena, the distinction between states and processes, and the unifying and transphenomenological nature of energy as an interpretive framework. We analyse how this approach responds to the major challenges identified in the science education research literature concerning the teaching and learning of energy. In justifying this proposed approach, we draw on the epistemology of science and also on the detailed results of the broad range of existing studies on this topic from science education research. (Contains 6 notes and 3 figures.)

This paper refers to the development of a teaching innovation for the nature of science (NOS), for students aged 11-15, which specifically focuses on the interrelationship between science and technology. The development of the teaching and learning materials relied on inputs from three sources: the history and philosophy of science and technology, existing knowledge concerning the teaching and learning about the NOS, empirical data on students' initial ideas and difficulties about this topic. The first served to provide an account for the various forms of interaction between science and technology, which, in turn, guided the formulation of epistemologically coherent learning objectives. The second provided the pedagogical grounds on which to base the design of the activities. The third facilitated the design of activities that build on students' productive initial ideas, while providing them with guidance to resolve the difficulties they tend to encounter. In this paper, we describe the rationale underlying the teaching and learning materials and we describe the activity sequence they embody.