The historical development of vaccine technology: Exploring the relationship between science and technology

This paper examines the feasibility of using historical case studies to contextualise the learning of the nature of science and technology in a biology lesson. Through exploring the historical development of vaccine technology, students were expected to understand the complexity of the relationships between technology and science beyond the simplistic portrayal of technology as ‘applied science’. Instructional scaffolding in the form of Socratic Dialogue and self-reflection was used to engage students in thinking about the difference in the nature of science and technology and their mutual interactions. This was followed by students’ reflections on the insights they have gained from the lesson as a means to evaluate and reconstruct their own understanding if necessary. The educational implications of the findings are discussed to explore how technology could be further integrated into the school science curriculum to enhance scientific and technological literacy. Copyright © 2016 royal Society of Biology.