How can science education foster students' rooting? - Springer Link

Cult Stud of Sci Educ (2015) 10:515–525 DOI 10.1007/s11422-014-9604-1 FORUM

How can science education foster students’ rooting? Edvin Østergaard

Received: 13 May 2014 / Accepted: 13 May 2014 / Published online: 5 June 2014 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

Abstract The question of how to foster rooting in science education points towards a double challenge; efforts to prevent (further) uprooting and efforts to promote rooting/rerooting. Wolff-Michael Roth’s paper discusses the uprooting/rooting pair of concepts, students’ feeling of alienation and loss of fundamental sense of the earth as ground, and potential consequences for teaching science in a rooted manner. However, the argumentation raises a number of questions which I try to answer. My argumentation rests on Husserl’s critique of science and the ‘‘ontological reversal’’, an ontological position where abstract models from science are considered as more real than the everyday reality itself, where abstract, often mathematical, models are taken to be the real causes behind everyday experiences. In this paper, measures towards an ‘‘ontological re-reversal’’ are discussed by drawing on experiences from phenomenon-based science education. I argue that perhaps the most direct and productive way of promoting rooting in science class is by intentionally cultivating the competencies of sensing and aesthetic experience. An aesthetic experience is defined as a precognitive, sensuous experience, an experience that is opened up for through sensuous perception. Conditions for rooting in science education is discussed against three challenges: Restoring the value of aesthetic experience, allowing time for open inquiry and coping with curriculum. Finally, I raise the question whether dimensions like ‘‘reality’’ or ‘‘nature’’ are self-evident for students. In the era of constructivism, with its focus on cognition and knowledge building, the inquiry process itself has become more important than the object of inquiry. I argue that as educators of science teachers we have to emphasize more explicitly ‘‘the nature of nature’’ as a field of exploration.

Lead Editor: C. Milne. This review essay addresses Wolff-Michael Roth’s paper titled: Enracinement or The earth, the originary ark, does not move—on the phenomenological (historical and ontogenetic) origin of common and scientific sense and the genetic method of teaching (for) understanding. E. Østergaard (&) Section for Learning and Teacher Education, IMT, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, ˚ s, Norway A e-mail: [email protected]

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Keywords Phenomenology Aesthetic experience Ontological reversal Heidegger Husserl Dewey

How does science teaching promote students’ feeling of alienation in science class? And how can science teachers strengthen the relationship between students’ familiarity with the world and learning the genetic method in scientific teaching? These are some of the questions which are dealt with in the article, Enracinement or The earth, the originary ark, does not move… by Wolff-Michael Roth. The article is a stimulating and valuable contribution to the debate on science education and the students’ profound feeling of alienation in science class. The argumentation is rooted in Edmund Husserl’s phenomenological philosophy and research on the current challenges in school science. By drawing on the theories of Simone Weil and Martin Wagenschein (amongst others), and by discussing the uprooting/rooting pair of concepts, Roth provides a solid argumentation for ‘‘forms of education that counter alienation by grounding itself in children’s familiarity with the world and in the expansion of this familiarity through immediate experience.’’ Roth’s perspective is inspired by the science educator Martin Wagenschein and his phenomenological double focus on the natural phenomenon as well as the learning student as phenomenon. Roth’s argumentation leads to a discussion of potential consequences for teaching science in a ‘‘rooted’’ manner. Both his philosophical approach and science educational discussion have inspired me to go a few steps further. What I would like to elaborate on is the phenomenology of Martin Heidegger as a deepening of Husserl’s phenomenological theory of origin (German: Ursprungslehre), which forms an essential fundament in Roth’s line of argumentation. My argument is divided into the following four topics: the notion of ontological reversal and its implications for science education; Heidegger’s phenomenology with emphasis on his space analysis; an elaboration on aesthetic experience; and conditions for rooting to take place in science class. In the discussion I will also draw on my own experiences when it comes to teaching phenomenon-based science education for pre-service science teachers.

Students’ uprooting and the ontological reversal The frame for Roth’s analysis is the current description of science education and students’ experience of being de-rooted and alienated in relation to the world in which they live their lives. In the science classroom, the knowledge and theories behind what the students experience have become more scientifically correct than the experienced phenomenon itself. This situation creates a gap between the world of scientific knowledge-based explanation and students’ experienced lifeworld. Is this occurring gap one of the reasons for students’ low interest in choosing science subjects in higher education? Here we are faced with the two questions: What is the reason for this alienation and which measures can be taken in order to reverse this trend? In his late philosophy, Husserl argues that the natural sciences have lost contact with the lifeworld. In his Crisis in the European Sciences, Husserl (1970b) maintained that the scientific culture of Europe has uncritically accepted the Cartesian dualism and its consequent objectivistic and naturalistic view of knowledge and acquisition of knowledge. Therefore science is unable to consider how the subjectivity of the researcher participates in the

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constitution of scientific knowledge. Here Husserl introduces the concept of lifeworld—a concept which has been subject of long (and disputing) discussions, but which somewhat simplified can be referred to as ‘‘the world of everyday experiences’’ (Østergaard, Hugo and Dahlin 2007). Husserl’s point is that the natural sciences have lost contact with the lifeworld; they no longer realize how scientific knowledge is related to everyday experiences and that such knowledge in fact always presupposes the lifeworld as its ontological foundation (Dahlin 2001). In his discussion of Husserl’s critique of science, Charles W. Harvey (1989) defines the ‘‘ontological reversal’’ as an ontological position where abstract models from science are considered as more real than the everyday reality itself. The abstract, often mathematical, models are taken to be the real causes behind everyday experiences. Thus, from an ontological perspective, what is real has been reversed. According to the ontological reversal, (sensuous) experience is regarded as subordinate in relation to (conceptual) understanding. This turn in the understanding of what is real has some severe consequences for teaching, in particular in science. As long as abstract, scientific models are taken as the real causes behind everyday experiences, models that by nature are to be understood and explained, teachers tend to put less emphasis on students’ perception and experience. The phenomenological critique of this ontological turn is explicitly expressed by phenomenologists like Husserl and Heidegger and by science educators like Martin Wagenschein (which Roth expands on). This critique might form the very basis for a return to the rootedness in the world by re-reversing the ontology. A pedagogical implication of the ontological reversal is that teaching is planned ‘‘from the end’’ (Wagenschein 1990). The end of what, one might ask. A lifeworld-based teaching starts ideally in open-minded sense experiences, in the everyday and intuitive knowledge of children, in their personal knowledge. From there the teacher designs a learning path towards the realm of theory, models and abstract knowledge. This would ensure that scientific concepts are rooted in experience, and not merely jumped to. Science teaching planned ‘‘from the start’’ involves a primary focus on perceptual lifeworld experience and a secondary focus on cognitive activities in which these experiences are reflected or explained (Østergaard and Dahlin 2009). Instead, in mainstream science class room, the planning starts with the concepts to be learned, the teacher aiming at making them understandable for the student, using phenomena or experiments as mere illustrations. Here, phenomena are given a secondary significance, whereas theory of the phenomenon, relevant concepts, theories, possible models in order to explain phenomena, all are of primary importance. In science class today, we would have no problems of finding a pervading attitude, which Bo Dahlin (2001) refers to as the primacy of conceptual cognition. Sense experience is reduced to a mere instrument for quasi-openly looking for what has already been defined. This is how the ontological reversal shows itself in practical teaching. Obviously, an ontological re-reversal also implies giving experience and perception back its role in science education.

Heidegger’s phenomenology and the two spaces Precise and systematic observations have always played a crucial role in the history of science. Empirical observations constitute the very hub around which new theories and knowledge develop. Regardless of the degree of abstraction in scientific theories, human senses will always constitute the scientific experiment’s last authority: The eyes which read a series of measurements on the screen are the same eyes, which for infinite times, have

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been formed in dialogue with sun and stars. A science of nature, which does not relate directly to human experience, is meaningless, irrespective of its suitability. With the risk of oversimplification one might argue that the core of phenomenology is to return ‘‘to concrete, lived human experience in all its richness’’ (Moran 2000, p. 5; italics in original). Phenomenology provides a basis for open-mindedly exploring the diversity of lifeworld phenomena and human relationships to them by following Edmund Husserl’s ideal ‘‘to go back to the ‘things themselves’’’ (Husserl 1970a, p. 168). The exploration is preconceptual in the sense that no concepts are searched for, but rather a rich, sensuous expression of the phenomenon itself is the goal. The fact that experiencing the phenomenon in its richness is inseparable, connected to and embedded in the viewer’s pre-understanding, is a point in Martin Heidegger’s phenomenology. In Being and Time Heidegger (1962) turns the attention towards man’s existence as the Being-in-the world, the existential foundation which our intellect takes for granted and rests upon. Man is thrown into this world and this ‘‘thrownness’’ (Geworfenheit) each individual must verify through an authentic, personal choice. Heidegger’s emphasis on our pre-understanding and our already being in the world, prior to conceptual or scientific reasoning about it, is central in Time and Being and highly relevant for the scope of Roth’s article. This relevance becomes even clearer when Roth describes the difference between the moving and the not-moving earth. In order to discuss de-rooting as a problem and uprooting as a goal or positive challenge in science education, Roth turns to Husserl’s examination of the earth underneath our feet as ground of (existential) rest. It is obvious that rooting is not to be interpreted in a physical, but rather in a mental, existential manner. In its original meaning, Husserl claims, our original earth does not move, ‘‘she rests’’ (Husserl 1940, p. 313; my translation). This ground is, from the phenomenological perspective, a ‘‘true ground’’ because it forms a firm point for our comprehension of the world. The earth is a ‘‘ground body’’ (Bodenko¨rper) (ibid., p. 317) to which our bodies are connected. Here we sense the resounding of Leonardo’s description of man situated in the world: ‘‘Each man is always in the middle of the surface of the earth and under the zenith of his own hemisphere, and over the centre of the earth’’ (cited in Richter 1970, p. 139). Reminiscences of this profound feeling of being situated in the world, of being at home, are found in the everyday language and knowledge when we talk of the sun turning around the earth. And, as Roth notes, the fact that ‘‘scientists themselves continue to marvel at a beautiful sunrise or sunset’’, does of course not change or challenge the Copernican worldview. Rather it reminds us of the fact that our language is full of immediate and intuitive utterances rooted more in experience than in fact-based education. Existentially speaking the earth is firmly situated beneath our feet, whereas physically speaking the earth is moving around the sun. In his space analysis in Time and Being (§§ 22–24) Heidegger makes the distinction between geometrical space and existential space: the first being describable by laws of physics, the latter the often pre-conscious and self-evident space of existence. The distinction between the moving and the unmoving earth is in certain manners comparable to Heidegger’s space analysis. According to Heidegger the existential space refers to our lifeworld, the world in which we live our lives. This forms the primary space and consists of a context of relating objects of utility and cannot to be regarded as a three-dimensional coordinate system without center. On basis of Heidegger giving primacy to our being and rootedness in the world, we can understand that closeness and rootedness is not to be understood primarily in spatial terms. Closeness is a human sensation of feeling connected to, feeling rooted. Here, the earth shows itself in how it is being experienced, not primarily in how it is measured within a three-dimensional space. Thus, closeness is not a question of physical distance; it is a question of being in contact with the roots.

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Heidegger’s analysis of the two spaces leads to the radical conclusion that the geometrical space presupposes the lifeworld space; it is not the other way around. Our very being is a precondition (pre-) for conceiving the dimensions of the physical space. Our existence is not something that is filled into an empty, three-dimensional space. Rather, we are, as acting and sense-seeking human beings, always already in the world, prior to our formulation of knowledge about the world. Heidegger warns explicitly against a one-sided emphasis on the geometrical space, as this could lead to an Entweltlichung, the fact ‘‘that the wordly character of the ready-to-hand gets specifically deprived of its worldhood’’ (Heidegger 1962, p. 147; italics in original). Such a neutralization of the primary space might have as consequence that the world ‘‘becomes spatialized [verra¨umlicht] to a context of extended Things which are just present-at-hand and no more’’ (ibid., p. 147). Heidegger’s warning, that a one-sided emphasis on the geometrical space might lead to an Entweltlichung of the original existential space, is highly relevant for today’s science education. In order to stop/reverse this tendency aesthetic experience should be granted a self-evident position in science teaching.

What is an (aesthetic) experience? In Roth’s article, the notion of sense experience is not explicitly elaborated on (although mentioned). When referring to the characteristic forms of enracinement, rooting, he uses different expressions associated with experience, as for example ‘‘originary experience’’, ‘‘immediate experience’’ or ‘‘kinaesthetic experience’’. It seems crucial first to reflect on the meaning of experience before discussing efforts with the purpose of promoting ‘‘rooted experience’’ and preventing further uprooting in science class. The relationships between aesthetics, experience and interaction with nature are developed in-depth in John Dewey’s Art as Experience (2005). Dewey draws the attention towards the act of aesthetic experience beyond the conventional focus on the art object itself. Experience is regarded as ‘‘the result, the sign, and the reward of that interaction of organism and environment which, when it is carried to the full, is a transformation of interaction into participation and communication’’ (Dewey 2005, p. 22). He even goes one step further by claiming that the aesthetic experience integrates person and environment. In the (truly) aesthetic experience, the viewer and the viewed are one. This concept of aesthetics is in contrast to a conventional view of aesthetics as a feature of beautiful, memorable objects. An aesthetic experience in this sense is beyond the notion of subjectively perceived beauty (Girod 2007). Rather, in aesthetics we cultivate ‘‘a careful and exact attention to all the qualities inherent in sense experience’’ (Dahlin 2001, p. 454). In the aesthetic experience, there is no distinction of self and object, ‘‘since it is esthetic in the degree in which organism and environment cooperate to institute an experience in which the two are so fully integrated that each disappears’’ (Dewey 2005, p. 259). Dewey claims that aesthetics is no intruder into experience from without; ‘‘it is the clarified and intensified development of traits that belong to every normally complete experience’’ (ibid., p. 48). The word ‘‘aesthetics’’ is derived from the Greek words aisthetikos, ‘‘sensitive, perceptive’’ and aisthanesthai which means ‘‘to perceive (by the senses or by the mind), to feel.’’1 Etymologically speaking, an aesthetic experience is a precognitive, sensuous experience, an experience that is opened up for through sensuous perception. 1

From: Douglas Harper, Online Etymology Dictionary (http://www.etymonline.com/), accessed Marsh 20, 2014.

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Dewey’s attempt to draw aesthetic experience out of the narrow field of artistic practice into a more general educational situation is as important as his shift of focus from the (aesthetic) art object to the (aesthetic) experience itself. In an educational situation the core question is how the specific quality of aesthetic experience might be fostered. What is there for the science teacher to learn from the artist’s skill of careful observation and creative expression? Dewey argues that an artist ‘‘is one who is not only especially gifted in powers of execution but in unusual sensitivity to the qualities of things’’ (ibid., p. 51). In cultivating ‘‘sensitivity to the qualities of things,’’ I see a beneficial sharing between artist and the science teacher. One possible reason why sense experience is not emphasized in science class is that sensing and perception is taken for granted. Sensing is regarded as self-evident, maybe because it is viewed as a set of unquestionable skills, which are given to us, once and for all. For the sake of argument, imagine a far future when humankind completely has lost the ability of color vision. Despite this loss, they would still have lots of documentations from our time. Reading descriptions like ‘‘the blue depth of the sky’’ in W. B. Yeats’ poem ‘‘The Magi’’ would probably leave the reader puzzled and uncomprehending. Looking at the Vincent van Gogh painting ‘‘The Sower’’, they would be unable to experience its yellow brightness and the colored fields beneath the sower’s feet. What would these persons reason about the phenomenon of colors? Most probably they would dismiss sense experiences as reminiscences of a magical worldview and superstition of the twentieth and twenty-first century. Instruments would certainly be able to measure the wavelengths of colors, but humans would lack the skill of experiencing them. Words like blue and yellow would be empty shells. Experiencing colors is not merely a process of reading objective facts in nature; in the aesthetic experience—as Dewey argues—the viewer actively connects to the surrounding. As Goethe demonstrated in his theory of colors, and as anyone can experience themselves, the eye looking at a red surface will produce a green (complementary color to red) afterimage when the red surface is removed. In experience, the experiencing person is actively participating in the appearance and unfolding of the experienced phenomenon. Promoting sense experiences in science class is a major concern in phenomenon-based science education (Dahlin, Østergaard and Hugo 2009). In his paper, Roth refers to sense experiences several times, for example: ‘‘Our sense experiences provide us with the foundational sense that are the roots’’. This is an essential claim. For me one obvious consequence here would be to discuss effort in education to cultivate the competencies of (aesthetic) experience.

Bridging the gap between sense experience and concepts A major part of Roth’s article is the implication section, that is, reflections and suggestions on how science education might foster rooting. I think of this as a double challenge: efforts to prevent (further) uprooting and efforts to promote rooting/re-rooting. I would argue, from a phenomenological point of view, that perhaps the most direct and productive way of promoting rooting in science class is by intentionally cultivating the competencies of sensing. Through the teacher education program at Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NULS), and especially the work of the research group on phenomenon-based science education, since 2001 we have gathered experience concerning possibilities and constraints of this pedagogy. Through a set of exercises, precise sense observation is trained as well as

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reflection on how to bridge phenomenon descriptions and concepts. I will briefly expand on this relation using two examples from our work. In the introduction to phenomenon-based science education, all our pre-service teacher students explore for about 4 h a variety of different apples. I have chosen apples because they are everyday phenomena, which most students (and children) regard as something common. It is a phenomenon, which easily can be tasted, smelled, looked at and held in the hand. They start the inquiry by the following two guidelines: First: ‘‘Imagine that you meet this phenomenon for the first time. Explore freely the phenomena in front of you. Use your senses! Write down your observations.’’ Second: ‘‘Relate what you have found to your own experience, knowledge and teaching subject, as well as learning goals in the curriculum. Be creative!’’ On the bases of a rich picture of ‘‘the apple’’, the picture is connected to various themes in science subject as well as to other subjects (see Dahlin et al. 2009). In an elective in-depth module on phenomenon-based science education called ‘‘Sound and Sensibility’’, students explore the relation between (enhanced) listening and (deepened) concept formulation. The pre-service science teachers participate in a three step exercise: In the first step they are asked to close their eyes and just listen to the sound phenomenon produced by rubbing the finger on the rim of a crystal glass. The glass is rubbed at least for half a minute, repeated three times with variations of rubbing speed and intensity and with a second glass rubbed simultaneously by another person. After every repetition, the students write down, in silence, their answers to the task given: ‘‘You will now hear three sounds. Try to describe what you hear, with your own words.’’ In the second step, the students work in groups of four, choosing between these words and expressions in order to establish a bridge between the expressions and one of the following three scientific concepts connected to sound: frequency, decibel and noise. In the third step, each group presents the results in class, emphasizing their reflections on why they chose these specific (everyday) words or expressions from the initial manifold of descriptions, how they linked descriptions of aesthetic experiences to chosen scientific concepts, and whether they had to establish new, intermediate notions in order to reach the scientific concepts end of the bridge. For instance, one group established the following chain of words/expressions between the sounding crystal glass and the concept of frequency: Phenomenon, ‘‘something which goes round and round’’/‘‘swinging’’, vibrations, waves, wave speed, frequency (see Østergaard and Dahlin 2009). Common for these two exercises is that, referring to Wagenschein, the learning process starts from the beginning. The students start with examining an actual, aesthetic phenomenon (‘‘apple’’), not merely an example of a source of vitamin C or an object to demonstrate chemical compounds as esters or carboxylic acids. They start with accurate listening of a specific sound, not with the task to ‘‘listen to the frequency’’, which phenomenologically speaking of course is meaningless. The act of attention has two directions: outwards to the apple and the sounding crystal glass and inwards to the associations and memories, which intuitively come when tasting the fruit and listening to the sound. After having worked in class with such common phenomena, exploring them aesthetically and discussing their relevance as starting points in teaching and learning processes, the teacher students themselves are encouraged to seek and choose their own phenomena which they find useful in their teaching. Exercises like the apple exploration and the sound inquiry may be a fruitful start for the work of planning a lesson—or a series of lessons. The chosen phenomenon exercises can either be a part of the lesson, working within one science subject, or they may connect different science subjects or even themes from other subjects. Here the students exercise the four-step model of bridging scientific concepts and lifeworld phenomena: (1) developing a rich picture and building a living image of the

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observed phenomenon, (2) choosing some of the students’ everyday concepts from these rich descriptions to move towards the scientific concepts, (3) introducing scientific concepts and/or models, and (4) using the introduced scientific concepts for a deepened understanding and a more precise observation of the phenomenon (Østergaard et al. 2007).

Conditions for rooting in science education By allowing for precise descriptions of what is heard, the basic concepts of sound might be introduced and grounded. By drawing the forms and colors of an apple, the act of observation is trained and the basic features of this biological phenomenon are learned and grounded. Emphasizing skills of precise observation is in accordance with core competencies performed as a natural scientist and skills, which are to be trained in science class. Efforts to become a scientist and efforts to promote rooting thus work in the same direction. Three main challenges might be distinguished when it comes to promoting rooting in science class: 1. Restoring the value of aesthetic experience In science class today the skills of rich observation are often neglected due to time constraints and teachers’ priority of content and process. However, this is not as much a time challenge as a mental challenge, as long as sense experiences are devaluated compared to cognition and abstraction competencies. Here, the challenge is obviously to transform the ontological re-reversal into practical pedagogical actions. By valuing students’ own aesthetic experiences, and how they choose to name these, a science teacher can offer students a learning environment while helping them stay grounded in the familiar. 2. Allowing time for open inquiry This is a double challenge: firstly to return to the primacy of sense experiences as a necessary foundation for scientific learning, not merely a nice introduction to concept learning, and secondly to cultivate the skills of phenomenon unfolding. The problem of ‘‘too early closure’’ occurs when too little attention is planned for the open inquiry phase. For the science teacher students the challenge is expressed both mentally and practically, giving too little attention to an initial exploration of chosen phenomena. This problem should be discussed openly with the students emphasizing that a truly aesthetic exploration depends on an open and unbiased attitude towards inquiry. Teacher students must be encouraged to make unprejudiced experiences, which might serve as ‘‘raw material’’ for grounding abstract scientific knowledge in the lifeworld (Østergaard 2011). 3. Coping with curriculum Any inquiry process, regardless its degree of openness, must relate to the frames, possibilities and limitations given by curriculum. On obvious problem is that the subject is divided into smaller parts, in order to operationalize teaching. Phenomenology is at its core a holistic educational approach, connecting not only various parts of biology or physics, but also comprising different school subjects. In order to avoid conflicting consideration regarding the fulfillment of the curriculum, the science teacher students are encouraged to seek phenomena and plan teaching which cover several learning goals. Further they are encouraged to seek collaboration with teachers from other subject (i.e. art) in order to plan and implement inter-subject teaching. Current science education of course faces also the immense challenges in a time of rapidly changing conditions. In the light of radically new conditions for growing up (since

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Weil and Wagenschein), we need to discuss contemporary challenges of promoting rooting/preventing de-rooting. Which influence does new technology, media and computer tools have on students’ ability to connect to earth as ‘‘ground body’’ (Husserl) and to prevent further Entweltlichung (Heidegger)? Roth does not touch on this challenge, nor will it be followed up here. I do, however, have the impression that the effort on increased content learning in science and mathematics as a result of the latest PISA results (which at least here in Norway are discussed passionately) will lead to increased uprooting rather than desired rooting. Thus, it would be unsubtle to claim that current science education is the main reason behind students’ feeling of alienation and loss of fundamental sense of the earth as ground. Obviously, we cannot assume that school science produces up-rooted students; the students might already enter science class room with a feeling of derootedness.

A study of ‘‘the nature of nature’’? In Heidegger’s phenomenology of being, particular emphasis is placed on ‘‘the non-representational aspect of human beings’ involvement with the world’’ (Donnelly 1999, p. 934). In the exercises described above the teacher students are encouraged to explore the borderland between phenomenon and its multiple representations by sensuous involvement. It is our task as science teacher educators to design a setting, which allows for a grounded aesthetic experience. This must start by facilitating for the teacher students an encounter with the phenomenon as it is before it is turned into representations. I see this not so much as a question of choosing the right phenomena as allowing the phenomena to speak on their own terms. A phenomenon encounter should also allow for the appearance of immediate everyday expressions, a sign, as Roth points out, of our familiarity with the world. Heidegger distinguishes between two spaces and argues that the geometrical space presupposes the lifeworld space. In the same line of thought one might argue that conceptual understanding presupposes aesthetic experience. Representations of lifeworld phenomena can only be conceptually grasped by the student if representations are allowed to be grounded in experience. Here we (again) find the need for an ontological re-reversal: The phenomenon is always more than the sum of its representations. Roth’s paper circles around the kinship between Weil’s concept of rooting and uprooting and Martin Wagenschein’s genetic approach to teaching and learning science. In his Wagenschein lecture from 1993 Peter Buck makes a similar comparison of ideas. He refers to Simone Weil’s critical analysis, stating that ‘‘uprooting is by far the most dangerous illness in society because it duplicates itself: The one who is uprooted, uproots further. The one who is rooted, does not uproot’’ (cited in Buck 1997, p. 29; my translation). Buck continues: Wagenschein explicitly supported this line of thought. I want merely to remind us of his insisting persistence that physics is just one aspect and nothing more. For the sake of truth this should be recognized. Wagenschein never stopped emphasizing how much physics is an aspect and not reality. (ibid., p. 29; my translation). However, we cannot take for granted that dimensions like ‘‘reality’’ or ‘‘nature’’ are self-evident. In the era of constructivism, with its focus on students’ cognition and construction of knowledge, the inquiry process itself has become more important than the object of inquiry. Dealing with the nature of science (NOS) presupposes a nature to investigate. When Robert Shaw (2013), with a foundation in Heidegger’s philosophy of

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science, elaborates on the scientific method, he makes the following claim: ‘‘As scientists work, they reveal new aspects of the Real’’ (p. 565). Whether this ‘‘Real’’ really is experienced as real, depends eventually on our ability of sensing and our sense of groundedness. I have argued that science education can foster our students’ rooting by cultivating their sensibility towards nature and natural phenomena. By talking of sense experiences one might also avoid more ambiguous concepts, which occur in Roth’s article, like ‘‘reality experience’’ (is the reality only outside class room?) or ‘‘essential experience’’ (for whom is this experience essential?). As educators of science teachers we have to emphasize more explicitly ‘‘the nature of nature’’ as a field of exploration. Here Heidegger’s existential phenomenology might be useful. A radical returning to rootedness in science education is to practice phenomenology and stimulate the ‘‘sensitivity to the qualities of things’’ (Dewey 2005, p. 51).

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Wagenschein, M. (Ed.) (1990). Kinder auf dem Wege zur Physik [Children on their way towards physics]. Weinheim, Germany and Basel, Switzerland: Beltz Verlag.

Edvin Østergaard is professor in ‘‘Art and Science in Education’’ at Section for Learning and Teacher Education, Department of Mathematical Sciences and Technology (Norwegian University of Life Sciences). His research and teaching focus on phenomenology in science education and the kinship of art and science. He has published several articles in journals like Studies in Science Education, Leonardo, Journal of Aesthetic Education, and Zeitschrift fu¨r Didaktik der Naturwissenschaften. Østergaard is also active as a composer, and his music has been performed in several European countries, as well as in the USA and Canada. In 2010 he received ‘‘Spellemannsprisen’’, the Norwegian Grammy, for his CD ‘‘Die 7. Himmelsrichtung’’.

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