Learning and teaching science with analogies and metaphors

Abstract

[n this chapter, we review Australasian research to outline the broad pathways this research has followed and to highlight s ignificant contributions the work has made to science education. We describe a series of studies from different research groups and highlight two seminal publications that are discussed later in finer detail. The first publication Metaphor and analogy in science education (Aubusson, Harrison & Ritchie, 2006a) provides a state of the art analysis of how metaphors and analogies are used in science classrooms; the majority of the authors are Australasian. The second publication Using analogies in middle and secondOlY science classrooms (Harrison & Coli, 2008) provides both a scholarly argument for using analogies in science teaching and also presents 50 concepts from biology, chemistry, physics and earth and space science that have been taught using a model for effective analogy teaching. The chapter concludes with an analysis identifying where gaps remain in our understanding of the role of analogy and metaphor in science education and suggests emerging fields for further study.