STEMkey (2020-2023) is an Eramus+ project which aims to transform future teachers’ approach to teaching standard STEM topics. To achieve that, we want to rethink, reshape and redirect the delivery of fundamental STEM subject knowledge in the direction of key competence development. In STEMkey, 12 partners from institutions across Europe will develop innovative teaching modules for initial teacher education to help future teachers connect standard STEM topics to real-life contexts, using an interdisciplinary approach.

Collective volume edited by Annette Lykknes and Brigitte Van Tiggelen (World Scientific, 2021)

History of science is full of examples of scientific discoveries, priority disputes related to such discoveries, and discussions on what aspects of a discovery that qualify for credit. In textbooks and popular accounts, however, discoveries are often presented as clear-cut and a point for sudden change of thought (or even as decisive for paradigm shifts), while insight into the context in which the discovery took place, the time involved in developing new knowledge, and the contributions by a range of actors of different rank, is often omitted.

This volume will focus on chemical elements and will offer well researched case studies. Questions we seek to shed light on include: How the discovery process can be reconstituted through historical documentation, how one (or more) ‘discoverers’ found their place in popular historical accounts, and what stage in a discovery constitutes the ‘discovery’. Indeed, we want to stress that discovery is a collective process and the result of narratives that are context dependent as they occur in specific time place and social settings.

In December 2017 the United Nations (UN) General Assembly declared 2019 the International Year of the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements. UNESCO, scientific societies, educational and research institutions, and other organisations came together for the IYPT. The activities related to the IYPT at NTNU were coordinated by the ScienceHumanities research group, and supported by the Department of Teacher Education, the Faculty of Natural Sciences (and its Departments of Chemistry, Material Science and Engineering, Chemical Engineering, and Biotechnology and Food Science), and the Royal Norwegian Society for Sciences and Letters. Collaborators included The Geological Survey of Norway (NGU) and the Science Center in Trondheim (Vitensenteret).

A variety of activities were organised, for example Stjernestøv (“Stardust”), a “chemistry van” which has been equipped with samples of the chemical elements visiting schools in the provinces of Trøndelag; a periodic table app (currently in development); a scientific anthology, two special issues of journals, and articles; a popular science book and lectures for the general public; a web site; and two exhibitions at the Natural Science Library at NTNU, all covered variously by the press. Overall, the activities have aimed to disseminate knowledge on chemistry in general, to make sense of the periodic system and its elements in particular, and to use the history of the periodic system to show that science is a multifaceted, complex and collaborative pursuit, rather than the stand-alone achievement of individual geniuses.

Website for Periodesystemets år ved NTNU

Selected publications:

• Unni Eikeseth and Annette Lykknes. Periodesystemet: Fra alkymi til kjernekjemi (Museumsforlaget, 2019)
• Annette Lykknes and Brigitte Van Tiggelen (eds.). The Periodic System: The (Multiple) Values of an Icon: Introduction. Special issue of Centaurus (2019) [in press]
• Brigitte Van Tiggelen, Annette Lykknes and Luis Moreno-Martinez (eds.). The Periodic System: A History of Shaping and Sharing. Special issue of Substantia (2019)
• Annette Lykknes and Brigitte Van Tiggelen (eds.). Women in their Element: Selected Women’s Contributions to the Periodic System (World Scientific, 2019)
• Brigitte Van Tiggelen and Annette Lykknes. Celebrate the women behind the periodic system. Nature 565 (2019)
• Unni Eikeseth mfl. Hvordan bygger man en verden? Et hefte om grunnstoffer og periodesystemet
• Articles (in Norwegian) about the periodic system and our activities in the chemistry journal Kjemi
• Articles (in Norwegian) about the periodic system in the teacher’s journal Naturfag