2025
Nature, Science and Public Understanding of Science
Name: Nature, Science and Public Understanding of Science
Code: FIS09381D
6 ECTS
Duration: 15 weeks/156 hours
Scientific Area:
History and Philosophy of Science
Teaching languages: Portuguese
Languages of tutoring support: Portuguese
Sustainable Development Goals
Learning Goals
Recognize the value of History and Philosophy of Science in the dissemination of scientific knowledge, developing critical thinking in this area, developing skills to enrich the experience of the physical world; acquire habits of thought that include qualities of scientific thought; know different conceptions of "Nature" underlying the different contexts of science and technology and to use this knowledge in characterizing the public understanding of science.
Contents
Nature and intelligibility: nature is written in mathematical characters? - Natural philosophy to "facticeiros" (fabricators of facts, according to Bruno Latour).
Nature, science and society: the text of Lavoisier and Séguin "On the breath of Animals" to "Popular Scientific Lectures" of the late nineteenth century.
-The nature and the Romantics: scientific experimentation as fragment; taste by weather phenomena to particle physics.
Da-unification of the arts to the unification of nature: the development of the energy concept.
-From the "science dans les salons" to "science in the city".
Nature, science and society: the text of Lavoisier and Séguin "On the breath of Animals" to "Popular Scientific Lectures" of the late nineteenth century.
-The nature and the Romantics: scientific experimentation as fragment; taste by weather phenomena to particle physics.
Da-unification of the arts to the unification of nature: the development of the energy concept.
-From the "science dans les salons" to "science in the city".
Teaching Methods
Presentation and discussion of contemporary ideas about the concept of nature, promoting interdisciplinary methodologies.
Reading and discussion of relevant historical texts (Galileo; Oersted; Mayer; Hemholtz; Mach; Wilson; Planck) and of texts of dissemination of science.
Writing a text around a theme given the theoretical framework developed over the course unit and enriched individually (evaluation).
Evaluation: production of a text for publication (80%); participation in the course (20%).
Reading and discussion of relevant historical texts (Galileo; Oersted; Mayer; Hemholtz; Mach; Wilson; Planck) and of texts of dissemination of science.
Writing a text around a theme given the theoretical framework developed over the course unit and enriched individually (evaluation).
Evaluation: production of a text for publication (80%); participation in the course (20%).
Certificações
