Science and Education: Notions of Reality, Theory and Model

Grade 12 French Students’ use of a Thermodynamic Model for Predicting the Direction of Incomplete Chemical Changes

“…This view is close to that of Bunge quoted by Gilbert, Pietrocola, Zylbersztajn and Franco (2000b). They state Bunge considers that a model occupies an intermediary position between a theory and an idealised description of reality, the reality-as-idealised, including model-objects which are derived from a group of real objects in order to represent their common properties (Gilbert et al, 2000b). They note that a modelobject cannot yield knowledge by the direct application of logic because it is an idealised empirical object (Gilbert et al, 2000b, p.32).…”

“…For example the thermodynamics of irreversible processes is a very large framework we use only partially to interpret chemical changes. This view is close to that of Bunge quoted by Gilbert, Pietrocola, Zylbersztajn and Franco (2000b). They state Bunge considers that a model occupies an intermediary position between a theory and an idealised description of reality, the reality-as-idealised, including model-objects which are derived from a group of real objects in order to represent their common properties (Gilbert et al, 2000b).…”

“…The limiting reactant is either copper (in the second experiment) or silver ions (in the first experiment). The first description of the experiments we made, includes chemical objects (liquids, solids…) technical objects (beakers, buchner funnel, pHmeter and so on) and events (a solid appears, a liquid turns blue…), it can be considered as a first description of reality, the worldas-experienced (Gilbert et al, 2000b). These objects and events are elements of reality-asperceived (Gilbert et al, 2000b) confronted to the world-as-experienced (reality-as-perceived) is a difficult task for beginners.…”

“…These studies did not focus on the use of the reaction quotient. Our purpose in this article is to determine (Gilbert et al, 2000b) and the model. Our research questions are then formulated as follow:…”

A realidade das entidades científicas e a formação de professores de física: uma análise sociocultural

“…Apesar de o debate filosófico em torno desse tema não possuir solução definitiva, encontramos trabalhos em ensino de ciências que defendem um ensino feito com base em uma concepção realista. Ou porque consideram essa perspectiva filosófica mais adequada (BARRA, 1998;GILBERT et al, 2000;MATTHEWS, 1994) ou porque entendem que uma concepção não realista da ciência poderia levar à ideia de que não compensaria estudá-la, já que, nesse tipo de concepção, o conhecimento científico não diria nada sobre a realidade (PIETROCOLA, 1999). No entanto, nos parece que esses trabalhos não se contrapõem somente a concepções antirrealistas, mas sobretudo a concepções relativistas mais radicais ou mesmo idealistas, que relativizam não só a realidade de teorias e entidades, mas também os padrões de racionalidade da ciência ou mesmo a noção de que o conhecimento pode ser a representação de um mundo independente do observador.…”