Abstract
Undergraduate geoscience students are rarely exposed to history and philosophy of science (HPS). I will describe the experiences with a short course unfavourably placed in the first year of a bachelor of earth science. Arguments how HPS could enrich their education in many ways are sketched. One useful didactic approach is to develop a broader interest by connecting HPS themes to practical cases throughout the curriculum, and develop learning activities that allow students to reflect on their skills, methods and their field in relation to other disciplines and interactions with society with abilities gained through exposure to HPS. Given support of the teaching staff, the tenets of philosophy of science in practice, of conceptual history of knowledge, and of ethics of science for society can fruitfully and directly be connected to the existing curriculum. This is ideally followed by a capstone HPS course late in the bachelor programme.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 81 |
| Pages (from-to) | 1-15 |
| Number of pages | 15 |
| Journal | European Journal for Philosophy of Science |
| Volume | 11 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Sept 2021 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This paper was written as part of a fellowship at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIAS-KNAW), Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Two reviewers provided helpful and constructive comments on an earlier draft. Wilma Wessels designed the horse fossil practical and many teaching assistants contributed to the described course with improvements. Joeri Witteveen and Jelmer Cleveringa are thanked for insightful discussion.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, The Author(s).