Aesthetic Understanding of the Nature of Science and its Implications for Science Education

پژوهش نامه مبانی تعلیم و تربیت

Article 3, Volume 10, Issue 2 - Serial Number 20, March 2021, Pages 46-66   

Document Type: پژوهشی

DOI: 10.22067/fedu.2021.31678.0

Authors

Mousa Toumajiri^{* 1}; Mahmood Mehrmohammadi²

¹PhD Student of University of Tehran

²Professor of Tarbiat Modares University

Abstract

This article's primary purpose is to examine the aesthetic aspects of natural sciences to gain an aesthetic understanding of the nature of science and its consequences for science education. For this purpose, using the method of analysis and deduction, after examining the conventional components of the nature of science based on Lederman et al. (2002), the aesthetic aspects of the conventional components of the nature of science were discussed. The study showed that science and scientific activities have essential commonalities with artistic and aesthetic activity. The importance of imagination and creativity, emotions, intuition, and attention to criteria such as beauty, elegance, simplicity, symmetry and harmony of theories by scientists, and metaphors and allegories, are the aesthetic and artistic aspects of the nature of science. This study showed that: (1) the importance of aesthetic nurturing in science education; and (2) the necessity of adopting a holistic approach to science education; are two fundamental theoretical implications that result from an aesthetic understanding of the nature of science.

Keywords

aesthetics of science; science education; aesthetic education; beauty of science; scientific education

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