Science Education in the Era of a Pandemic

In late February 2019, when the Covid-19 crisis began to spread across South Korea, my doctoral student Wonyong Park was there for his data collection in secondary schools. Unphased by the growing national epidemic at the time, he remarked: “As a Cambridge student, Newton once had to return home due to the plague outbreak in England, during which he made his greatest discoveries! However, as the situation develops, I promise I’ll keep healthy and make this time most useful for me.” Now, about a month later, the entire planet finds itself in the midst of a pandemic. Among the countries worst hit by the pandemic is Italy where one of our Associate Editors, Olivia Levrini, is based. During a recent exchange, she raised the question of how history, philosophy and sociology of science (HPS) might contribute to science education in the era of a pandemic. Given the novelty of the issues generated by a major health emergency, Science & Education invites colleagues to submit papers broadly addressing the following theme: “Science Education in the Era of a Pandemic: How can History, Philosophy and Sociology of Science Contribute to Education for Understanding and Solving the Covid-19 Crisis?” Past pandemics can point to not only the development of scientific explanations in time but also the societal contexts that harboured them. Consider the stigma associated with syphilis characterised as a French or an Italian disease depending on where the disease was observed in the fifteenth century; the framing of cholera in the colonial discourse in Asia and the impact of the disease on global trade in the nineteenth century; or the mistaken causality drawn between a country and an outbreak in the case of the Spanish flu in the early twentieth century. History is replete with countless lessons about pandemics in terms of their societal, ethical as well as their scientific and medical dimensions. The current pandemic is set against a backdrop of growing mistrust in science sometimes deliberately promoted for political ends, for instance, as is the case of climate change denial. There is an unprecedented need to educate the future scientists as well as the general public in engaging not only in evidence-based reasoning and critical thinking Science & Education https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-020-00122-w