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Understanding Science Through Knowledge
Organizers: An Introduction

Meena Kharatmal and Nagarjuna G.

(meena, nagarjun)@hbcse.tifr.res.in

Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education (TIFR)

We propose, in this paper, a teaching program based on a grammar of
scientific language borrowed mostly from the area of knowledge represen-
tation in computer science and logic. The paper introduces an operationiz-
able framework for understanding knowledge using knowledge representation
(KR) methodology. We start with organizing concepts based on their cognitive
function, followed by assigning valid and authentic semantic relations to the
concepts. We propose that in science education, students can understand bet-
ter if they organize their knowledge using the KR principles. The process, we
claim, can help them to align their conceptual framework with that of experts’
conceptual framework which we assume is the goal of science education.

Introduction

At the turn of the last century a group of philosophers of science, popularly
known as logical positivists, began to build the grammar of science. In the
current intellectual atmosphere logical positivism is more or less consid-
ered a sin. One main reason for that being the epistemological ground of
positivism, that scientific theories are grounded and logically connected in
observational language, was more or less convincingly demonstrated to be
incorrect. In the process the baby was thrown with the bath water. What
we are trying to do here is to propose a way to fetch what was lost in that
bath water, the grammar of scientific language.

It is justified to believe that science, unlike folk-lore or common sense,
is more rigidly organized body of knowledge. Exact sciences like mathe-
matics and physics tend to be very economical in the number of concepts
used to describe the phenomena and the connectors, to express the possible
relations, between the concepts. It is the objective of science to eliminate
ambiguity and use concepts as precisely as possible. Scientists do this by

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