Summary

The course allows students to learn by doing about the history of science, and the role played by experimentation, technical skills or material objects in the production of knowledge. Students will explore these topics by reconstructing a historical experiment, instrument or practice.

Content

Keywords

re-enactment, past experiments, learning by doing, history of science, practices, artefacts, tacit knowledge

POLY-perspective :

• creative perspective
• interdisciplinary perspective

https://www.epfl.ch/schools/cdh/cdhs-vision/

Learning Prerequisites

Required courses

HUM-402: Experimental history of science I

Learning Outcomes

By the end of the course, the student must be able to:

• Identify important research questions in the history of science.
• Formulate a problematic and hypothesis.
• Analyze historical sources.
• Interpret historical artefacts.
• Assess / Evaluate the tacit and technical skills involved in the production of knowledge.
• Critique historical accounts and their own scientific skills.
• Construct an argument.

Transversal skills

• Communicate effectively with professionals from other disciplines.
• Assess progress against the plan, and adapt the plan as appropriate.
• Access and evaluate appropriate sources of information.

Teaching methods

The course relies on the teaching method of learning by doing. We consider this to be a particularly appropriate method for imparting knowledge about the history of science.

Spring semester: group work under supervision.

Expected student activities

The Spring semester is dedicated to autonomous practical work. Students are expected to present
orally the advancement of their project during a mid-semester session. At the end of the semester, students are expected to present their research and hand a final report on their activities and findings.

Assessment methods

Independent evaluation at the end of both the autumn and spring term (grade associated to 3 ECTS).

Spring term:

• Mid-semester oral presentation (20%)
• Final oral presentation (40%)
• Final written report (40%)

Supervision

Resources

Bibliography

Ressources en bibliothèque

• Fors, Hjalmar, Lawrence H. Principe, and H. Otto Sibum. “From the Library to the Laboratory and Back Again: Experiment as a Tool for Historians of Science.”
• Smith, Pamela H., Amy R. W. Meyers, and Harold J. Cook, eds. Ways of Making and Knowing: The Material Culture of Empirical Knowledge
• Long, Pamela O. Artisan/Practitioners and the Rise of the New Sciences, 1400-1600
• Polanyi, Michael. The Tacit Dimension

Moodle Link

• https://go.epfl.ch/HUM-466