Against a Negative Image of Science: History of Science and the Teaching of Physics and Chemistry

After a first approach to analyze which is today’s status of the history of science in high school Physics and Chemistry classes, we attempt to demonstrate that an appropriate introduction of several aspects of History and Sociology of Science in our classes can operate a significant improvement in pupils’ image and attitudes in science and science teaching. We will show that several groups of pupils from 15 to 17 can improve significantly their interest in science after at least a year working with papers containing many different activities that involve several historical aspects of science, like context biographies, original papers, reports on STS in history or videos showing the making and growth of major concepts in P&C.