Investigating the relationships between students’ reasoning in Socio-Scientific Issues and knowledge about scientific inquiry and modelling

Abstract

Abstract In this paper, we investigate the relationships between students’ reasoning about socio-scientific issues and their knowledge about scientific inquiry and modeling. To this aim, we developed a teaching-learning sequence for Italian high school students (10th grade) during which the students were familiarized with the basic aspects of scientific inquiry and modelling and then confronted with the controversial scenario of the closing of a steel manufacture plant in Italy. The results show that students’ knowledge of models and the scientific inquiry does not seem adequate to achieve a sufficient level of competence in socio-scientific reasoning. Implication for teaching practice about physics-based socio-scientific issues will be briefly discussed.