Thinking About Science Education Science education upside down

Thinking About Science Education Science education upside down Forming a philosophy of science

Science and positioning • All education tries to “draft” students into certain roles • Roles answer the question “what you are learning this subject as…” • Science teaches students to think of the world as scientists…

Evidence • • • Learning the language scientists use… Learning to honor key scientists Learning to solve abstract problems Learning to dress as a scientist Learning to ask and solve problems as a scientist (inquiry)

What Guinea Pig Zero Teaches • Science involves more than the knowledge, vocabulary, worldview of scientists • Science is a relationship between a scientist and an object (guinea pig). • Guinea pigs see the world very differently than the scientists do…

How guinea pigs see the world • Science is about power • There is a long history of misuse of human subjects • Misuses have not ended with recent (1970 s) legislation • Scientists act ethically when scared • Guinea pigs have rich lives unrecognized by the history of science and medicine

Some Critical Moments and Icons in Guinea Pig History • • Tuskegee Syphilis Study Dr. Beamont and Alexis St. Martin Nuremberg Jesse Gelsinger Belmont Report WWII Conscientious Objectors Plutonium Experiments Consent form

Guinea Pig Pedagogy • Definition: Teaching science from the perspective of guinea pigs.

Teachable moments • Have students think and write about science from animals and objects points of view--what did the lettuce seeds feel/experience? • Discuss the history of human subjects • Have discussions about the risks and ethical dilemmas of objectification in science • Show films such as Miss Evers Boys (has problems, but is High School appropriate) • Use alternative texts: excerpts from GPZ and Truth

Teachable Moments Cont… • Make posters of important Guinea Pigs: Alexis St. Martin, Jesse Gelsinger, Bob Helms, and Herman Shaw

Resources (for the kids) • Feldshuh, D. (1995). Miss Evers' Boys. New York: Dramatist's Play. • Helms, R. (Ed. ). (2002). Guinea pig zero: An anthology of the Journal for Human Research Subjects. New Orleans, LA: Garrett County Press. • Morales, R. , & Baker, K. (2004). Captain America: Truth. New York: Marvel.

Resources for you • Altman, L. K. (1986). Who goes first: The story of self-experimentation in medicine. Berkeley: University of California. • Hornblum, A. M. (1998). Acres of skin: Human experiments at Holmesburg Prison: A story of abuse and exploitation in the name of medical science. New York: Routledge. • Jones, J. H. , & Tuskegee Institute. (1993). Bad blood: The Tuskegee syphilis experiment (New and expanded ed. ). New York: Free Press. • Lederer, S. E. (1995). Subjected to science: Human experimentation in America before the Second World War. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins. • Reverby, S. M. (Ed. ). (2000). Tuskegee's truths: Rethinking the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina. • Weinstein, M. (2001). A public culture for guinea pigs: US human research subjects after the Tuskegee Study. Science as Culture, 10(2), 195 -224. • Weinstein, M. (2004). Reversing the objective: Adding guinea pig pedagogies. Science Education, 88(2), 248 -262. • Welsome, E. (1999). The plutonium files: America's secret medical experiments in the Cold War. New York: Dial Press.