Unified View of Science and Technology Education:Technoscience and Technoscience Education1 SUVI TALADepartment of Physical Sciences, POB 64, FIN-00014 University of Helsinki, FinlandE-mail: suvi.tala@helsinki.fi Abstract:Scienceandtechnologyeducation,bothasdistinctandintegratedsubjects,reliesonatraditional conception of science and technology as fundamentally different and distinct enterprises. A closer look on the scientific progress reveals the traditional view one-sided. This study scrutinises the unification of science and technologyeducationfromtheviewpointofrecentscienceandtechnologystudies,whichhaverevealedan unexpectedlydeepbi-directionalrelationshipbetweenthedevelopmentofscienceandtechnology.The highlycognitiveroleoftechnologyinscientificknowledgeconstructionthroughexperimentingshowsthe needforanewunifyingview,technoscience,anditsconsideringinscienceeducation.Sincetechnoscience promotesascientificallysoundandauthenticviewtotherelationshipbetweenscienceandtechnology,it increasesthecoherenceoflearningprocessesbycombiningthetraditionallyseparatedscienceand technologybasedelementsofeducation.Additionally,technosciencesupportsinanaturalwaytheteaching solutions putting weight on personal conceptualization for learning. 1. IntroductionInscienceeducation,scientificallysoundandauthenticcontentisnaturallythenecessarystarting point.Inaddition,scienceeducationshouldbepersonallymeaningfulandintelligibletothe students, and should not only have an intrinsic coherence and unity as a subject, but also retain this coherenceandunitythroughoutthepersonallearningprocess.Atbest,thelearningprocess constitutesadimensionofprogress,whichrunsparalleltotheprogressinscienceitself.These features can be improved by using the philosophy and history of science in supporting the design of didactical solutions (for examples, see Hodson 1986; Layton 1993; Matthews 1994). Consequently, in this study the unification of scienceand technology education is scrutinised from the viewpoint of recent deeply philosophical and historical analysis of the actual activities and practices of science andscientists(e.g.Ihde1979;Kroes2003;Chang2004).Thiskindofscrutinyrevealsthedeep connectionsbetweenscientificprogress,indevelopmentofconceptualandtheoreticalstructures and the material resources available for experimentation and instrumentation. Finally, this deep bi-directional relation between science and technology, whereby technology acquires a crucial role in 1 Paper published in the Ninth International History, Philosophy & Science Teaching Conference in Calgary 24. - 28. 6. 2007 scientific progress, calls for a need for unified views on physics and technology, where the essential mutual interdependence of science and technology is appropriately acknowledged. For this type of new unified view the term technoscience has been suggested (see e.g. Latour 1987) and discussed to someextentwithinthehistoryandphilosophyofscience.Nevertheless,ithasnotyetbeen implementedasthebasisforanintrinsically(i.e.frompractisingphysicistsviewpoint)unified science and technology education. It is suggestedin the present work that there is a clear need for such rationalization of views in education, and that it is by now time to discuss the benefits of such aviewalsointhefieldofscienceeducation.Inwhatfollows,thistopicisdiscussedinthemore limitedcontextsofphysicsandphysicseducation,wheretheideasoftechnoscienceareperhaps most easily supported.2. Physics as Science and Technoscience Acloserlookattheformationofphysicsconceptsandconceptualstructuresasaconsequenceof theory formation in interaction with experimentation reveals that physical knowledge is not simply discovered from nature as obvious facts, but is painstakingly constructed through careful and well plannedexperimentationandaccompanyinginterpretationoftheexperiments.Inthatprocess,the availabletechnologicalknowledgeandtheactionsofdesigningexperimentalsetupsandtheir manipulationforcontrolarecrucial. Inlaboratorieswedonotseescientistsobservingnature,but actively and intentionally creating and designingexperimental settings, instruments and machines, whichproduce(Hacking1983)orisolateinterestingphenomena,notexistingoutsidethe instrumentsandmachinesassuch.Moreover,theexperimentaldataisnotgatheredbypassive observations but detected by theory-laden instruments, the in-built intention (Ihde 1979) of which is toreduceandmodifythecomplexphenomenatoparticularquantities.Hence,therealitythat physics opens up to us is accessed through the window of technology.Insuchamanner,technologymodifiesandaffectsphysicalknowledge.Throughprovidingboth scaffoldings and limits of physical reality accessible to us, it also necessarily affects our conception ofreality.Therefore,technologynotonlyencompassesamethodologicalroleinphysics,butin additionanepistemologicalandcognitiverole,eventotheextentthatitaffectsourontological positions.Owingtothesefundamentalroles,technologyshouldbeanorganicpartofphysics education.Finally,asderivedfromthefirsttwonotions,itfollowsthatweneedanewunifyingviewof technologyandphysics.Thiscanbeprovidedbytechnoscience,whichperceivesphysicsasan amalgamation of science and technology. A product of technoscience is not only an understanding of nature and of its phenomena, but one that also necessitates and provides the capability to create phenomena and design ways to control and manipulate them. On such a view, technological devices and the phenomena they produce are also part of physical research and of scientific interest, and on the broader scale, also part of nature.3. Reality Revealed through the Window of Technology Insciencetext-books,physicsisintroducedinitsstructuralform,byhierarchicallyorganized concepts,lawsandtheories.Thoseabstractideascannotbedirectlycomparedwiththenature theseabstractideasdescribe,andforthispurposetechnologyismergedtocognitivegoalsof physics.Forphysiciststhetechnologyasknowledge,techniquesandmaterialinstrumentation (Mitcham 1994) is a bi-directional medium, like a window through which they draw their concepts ofphysicalreality (Ihde1979). Thusintheheartofphysicalresearchisaskilfulengineeringof experiments.Inlaboratoriesresearchersdonotfollowastepwisesequenced,universallyjustified scientificmethod,asproposedintraditionalviewsandasoftendisplayedinscienceeducation. Instead, the technoscience discussed here is for revealing how the central method of physics is, in practice, centred in scientific design, which is a cyclic and iterative process, providing creative and criticalplanningandconstructionofmaterialexperiments,usinganddevelopingknowledgeof experimentaltechnologyandscientificallydesignedexperimentalknowledge.Thisprocess intertwines intimately the development of science and technology considered both as theories and action.Hence,intheseexperimentsandexperimentationsofknowledgeconstructiontheabstract, ofteninaccurate,ideasandconceptsdescribingtheworldarefrequentlydefinedanddeveloped, byusinganddesigninginstruments,whichhavethepurposeofmakingtheconceptsmutually measurableandmateriallycontrollable(seeanexampleinChang2004).Consequently,the capacitiesofexperimentalsystemsgiverisetotheapparentregularbehaviouroftheworldthat weexpressbyourphysicallawsandarethusworthbecomingtheobjectofcloserscientific scrutiny.Shouldwethen,facingthecreativeandintentionalnatureofknowledgeconstruction,giveupthe traditional conception of physics as describing independent, constant features and causal regularities ofNature?Infull-fledgedconstructivism,thisnotionhasledtoviews,accordingtowhichthe experimental objects and processes are nothing but artefacts and scienceas a whole is a branch of technology(seee.g.Latour1987).Inthefaceofscientificandtechnologicalprogress,thisview shouldberefuted;extendingthenotionoftechnologyandcontractingthenotionofscienceinan unwarrantedwaymakesbothdevoidofcontent.Nevertheless,thesituationwarrantsseeking contextualized unifications of traditional views.What seems to be certain, is that physics cannot distinguish between the artefactual and the natural (Kroes 2003), since all objects are physical. Nevertheless, the question regarding the back-inference from laboratory-phenomena to the world outside laboratories is important for physicists. From the materialpointofview,nosimpleanswercanbegiven:Partofthephenomenastudiedare completelynon-natural,inthesensethattheydonotoccurspontaneouslyorwithouthuman intervention, for example Halls effect, W-bosons, pure chemicals, and Andrew Crosses electrical life.Buttherealsoexistmorenaturalphenomena,whicharesomehowtamedandreduced from the world outside the laboratories (e.g. the mimetic experiments of the 18th century).On the broader perspective, scientific design is creation in a strong sense(Kroes 2003): it becomes meaningful only within a theoretical framework, which itself becomes revised in the iterative design processes.Nevertheless,forthevitalityofsciencetheverysuccessoftheexperimentslaysin controlandmanipulationovermateriallaboratoryphenomena,whichissomehowindependentof thetheoreticalinterpretations(Hacking1983).Thus,thedesignprocesscombinesthestageof knowinganddoingintoacontinuum,oratleastformsastepwisesequencebetweenthe abstractleveloftheoryandthemateriallevelofaction.Thismediumiswrittenindesignplans, whichguideboththematerializationofideasandsymbolicinterpretationofthem.Consequently, also the crucial design of theorizing and experimenting can be explained by iterative development of independent but interactive stages of know-how and know-that knowledge: physicists adopt ateverymomenttheexistingsystemsofknow-howandknow-thatknowledgeandexisting material abilities to control experimental systems (without any firm assurance of the correctness and accurateness),and,moreover,aimtosharpenandcorrectthemboth(cf.Chang2004).Thisself-correction of basic concepts, and laws of new theories, along with the ability to measure the related quantities,developsinsimultaneousinteractionwiththeworldmergedtothescientificdesign process. In this way, technology modifies and affects physical knowledge, and through providing limits and forms for physical reality accessible to us, it also necessarily affects our conception of reality. 4. New Views on Science Education: Technoscience Education Inphysicseducation,theexperimentalworkandassociatedskillsofhandlingtheexperimental apparatusandmeasuringinstrumentshaslongbeenconsideredasanintegralpartoflearning physics(Hodson1986).Thiscouldbringforwardtheimportantcognitiveroleoftechnologyin physics.Nevertheless,scienceandtechnologyeducation,bothasdistinctandintegratedsubjects (Layton1993)stillreliesonatraditionalconceptionofscienceandtechnologyasfundamentally different and distinct enterprises. Nevertheless, many new ideas discussed here can be implemented in the already existing framework: the three basic notions of the nature of technoscience, introduced in this study, guide the organization of the science- and technology-based elements of education in a new and fruitfully unifying way.Technoscience supports the conception that physical reality is revealed through, as well as modified by,technologicalaction:itdiffersfromtheequallydeficientviewsthatexperimentalmethodis necessaryfortheverificationoftheories,andinsteaddeepensunderstandingofthegenerative nature of experimentation in theory formation. Contrary to traditional views, technoscience enforces theviewthatactivemanipulationandinterventionthroughexperimentalactivityisanactof constructingourconceptionsofwhatexistsintheworldandhowitdoesso.Previously,theterm technosciencehasbeensuggestedonbaseofextrinsicviews(Mitcham1994),e.g.views emphasizingsociologicalprocesses.Thiskindofextrinsicviewdoesnotconflictwithhere suggestedintrinsicview,butrathersupportsit.Bothemphasizethesocialandhumanenatureof science. Nevertheless, since educational approaches based on extrinsic views (e.g. STSE education) aimatimprovinglearningaboutscienceinrelationtoenvironmentandsociety,heresuggested intrinsicviewaimsratheratimprovinglearningaboutscienceitselfandlearningsciencefor conceptual understanding.Inpractice,thetechnologicalnatureofphysicalrealitybecomeshighlightedbyimplementingthe ideasofknowledgeconstructionthroughscientificdesignofexperimentsineducation.In experimental design, also failure is a familiar thing, naturally understood as a lack of control over nature,anditisalwayscorrectablebysharpeningbothunderstandingandcontrol.Hence, technoscienceallowsstudentstoseescienceasanactive,creativeprocessratherthanasan algorithmic process of collecting information, picked up by neutral instruments and producing facts to be memorized. This way, technoscience supports students own construction of knowledge and it alsoprovidesanactiveandessentialroleinthisprocesstotools,instrumentsandapparatuses. Consequently, by emphasising the primary role of experiments in building up conceptual structures, the technoscience approach encompasses coherent conceptualization and conceptual understanding thetraditionallyvaluedgoalofallphysicseducation.Moreover,italsoguidesunderstanding, what is the area of application of this knowledge and, how we had got to know that all. Sincetechnoscienceemphasizesthehumansactive,creativeroleintheformationofconcepts, laws, and theories, it supports in a natural way the teaching solutions, which put weight on personal conceptualization for learning. In regard to the active role of learners, technoscience promotes the connectionbetweendoingandlearning,becauseitstressestheintertwinedcharacterof experimental explorations and theorizing, and acknowledges the central role of material devices. To design is not to follow recipes but to think and act creatively and critically (Layton 1993, Mitcham 1994)inordertorealizecognitivegoals,whichcanbeachievedonlythrough,andmergedwith, technologicaldevices.Additionally,overthelast30+years,havebeenfrequentlyachievedsome success, when the NOS-views are improved by including historical aspects of science in teaching. Therefore,technoscientificeducationaltaskscannaturallycombinebothhistoricalnarrativesand hands-onworking,designofwhichisguidedbydifferentdesign-,problem-andcontext-based approaches. Thus, designing technoscientific tasks involves not only the usual motivational factors (Layton1993),butbecomesguidedbyahumansaspirationtounderstandtheenvironment scientifically.Ultimately, this leads us to see technology not only as a vehicle towards more reliable and accurate knowledge, but also as a part of physical objects and value as an object of scientific research itself. Asanessentialproviderofphysicalrealitythatisaccessibletous,technologyisnotaneutral intermediatorofphysicalknowledgebut ratheranactivemodifierofit,which, finally, transforms our conception of reality. 5. Conclusion The motivation behind the present study is the notion that the views on the nature and relationship ofscienceandtechnologyare,inlightofrecentscienceandtechnologystudies,viewedtoo narrowly. The needed complementary view, that is, the unifying view of physics and technology, is suggested as being, the technoscientific view, introduced here. Technoscience considers physics and technology to be so intimately mutually interdependent that technology has a distinctively cognitive roletoplayinphysicaltheoryformation,and,moreover,anepistemologicalandcognitiverole, even to the extent that it affects our ontological positions.Technoscience serves a more authentic and constructive image of the role of technology in physical progress:ithelpstoconceivetechnologyinitscorrecthistoricalroleandprovidesteachingto the practisingphysicistsfamiliarconstructiveroleoftechnology.Since,technosciencecombines traditionallydistinctscience-andtechnology-basedelementsofeducation,usingitasabasisof education increasescoherenceand unity of physics as a subject. Furthermore, since technoscience promotestheconnectionbetweenknowinganddoing,thiscoherencebecomesextended throughout the personal learning processes.Hence, the technoscientific viewpoint makes it possible to retain those aspects of experimenting and design in education, which make them purposeful for learning,byprovidingastartingpointforstudentsownconstructionofknowledgeduringthe learning process. References Chang, H.: 2004, Inventing Temperature: Measurement and Scientific Progress, Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Science Hacking,I.:1983,RepresentingandInventing:IntroductoryTopicsinthePhilosophyofNatural Science, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Hodson,D.:1986,Laboratoryworkasscientificmethod,JournalofCurriculumStudies28(2), 115-135 Ihde, D.: 1979, Technics and praxis, Boston: D. Reidel Publishing Company Kroes,P.:2003,Physics,Experiments,andtheconceptofNature,inThephilosophyofscientific experimentation; Raddr, H. (ed.), 68-86 Latour,B.:1987,Scienceinaction:HowtoFollowScientistsandEngineersthroughSociety, Milton Keynes: Open University Press Layton,D.:1993,Technology'sChallengetoScienceEducation:Cathedral,QuarryorCompany Store?, Buckingham and Philadelphia: Open University Press Matthews,M.R.:1994,ScienceTeaching:TheRoleofHistoryandPhilosophyofScience,New York: RoutledgeMitcham, C.: 1994, Thinking Through Technology: The Path Between Engineering and Philosophy, The University of Chicago Press