Reopening the future through science education

Abstract

Contemporary crises have been interpreted as crises of imagination, rooted in dominant linear conceptions of time that constrain the ability to envision alternative futures. Within science education, these conceptions are reinforced by an almost exclusive focus on the Newtonian-Laplacian time of classical physics, which underpins clock time. This study explores how a complex systems perspective in physics education can expand students’ temporal imagination. Drawing on two datasets from the FEDORA project, we conducted a qualitative analysis of students’ writings to identify emerging temporal images. Results show a dominance of the “time of the clock” in future essays, while exposure to complexity science has opened space for the “time of experience”. These findings suggest that integrating complexity science into secondary school science curricula can contribute to problematizing linear clock time, thereby broadening students’ imagination of the futures.