This paper explores how a group of undergraduate students of the Department of Pedagogy and Primary Education of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens engaged with how teachers did laboratory training at the Maraslean Teaching Center in Athens, during the late 19th century. The authors provided access and scientific guidance to these students as they researched the Maraslean Teaching Center’s history and collections, and in developed educational projects. Student groups studied the history of: the Maraslean Teaching Center; the Laboratory of Natural Sciences and the historical scientific instruments from the
corresponding collection. These student groups designed and implemented educational material to highlight how these historical efforts and collections relate to society. In developing a framework that interrelates scientific instruments and educational history, they ended up dealing with the stereoscope, invented by Wheatstone, and the phonograph, invented by Edison. These two historical scientific instruments are the ancestors of today's video and audio devices. The first findings of the research demonstrate that pre-service primary teachers consider the history of their institution as part of their own history. They appreciate how Maraslean Teaching Center served as the place where their ancestors studied in preparing to become primary teachers. These pre-service teachers point out that both themselves and their colleagues, students of the forthcoming years, have an increased role in envisioning the history of the Maraslean Teaching Center and in particular the collection of historical scientific instruments. The material they produced was presented to students and adults during the Athens Science Festival 2021.

A common subject taught in science classrooms of Greek Schools, today, is the structure of the atom. The different ideas or models of the atom, from Democritus’s and Dalton’s to Thomson’s, Rutherford’s, Bohr’s or the ones of quantum mechanics, are mostly presented theoretically or through figures in textbooks.
In the present paper I want to explain how I use a series of experiments, in the form of a lecture demonstration, to help students understand phases of the historical process that led to the development of the early 20th century atomic theory. Through the lecture demonstration the students are guided to explore how the research on electrical discharges at low pressure led to the discovery of the cathode rays and the identification of the electron as a particle. Also, they are invited to follow the historical path which led from the introduction of spectroscopy by Kirchhoff and Bunsen to the development of Bohr’s atomic model. Finally, they are helped to understand the early 20th century quantum mechanics theory of the atom, through the experimental presentation of the dual nature of light and electrons, which behave as both particles and waves.
For the reconstruction of the historical experiments, I use modern apparatuses, such as the Ruhmkorff coil, the vacuum and cathode ray tubes, which imitate historical scientific instruments. This lecture demonstration has constituted part of my Upper-High-School chemistry courses for several years. I appropriately adapt its content to be able to address it to students of different grades and levels of science literacy.

At the 2020 SIC meeting, we presented activities with various historical mathematical instruments designed for third-year university mathematics students, along with a list of five main pedagogical goals that we believe can be achieved by experimenting with them: emphasizing the materiality of mathematical concepts, engaging with a historical perspective, experiencing an epistemological rupture, developing personal autonomy in mathematics, and reflecting on teaching. With this presentation, we propose to revisit this list in light of our experimental teaching this year. Currently, the majority of students have chosen to study plotting or measuring machines using string and/or wheel, two quite unusual geometrical. Machines for continuously plotting parabolas, hyperbolas, the Bernoulli machine for his brother's problem, the Abdank-Abakanowicz integraph and finally the cone and disk planimeters will be presented to the whole class as conclusion of the course. This pooling stage in particular will clearly highlight the common points and differences of these machines in their operating principle, their destination and their realization. A probably rich time to be. We will share this ongoing experience with the public, showing how our educational goals and ideas have evolved along with our students' projects and activities.

How many students today have opportunities to observe, experiment, understand and reflect on experiences where they do and wonder? Routinely, pressures of grades override all else; learning, with its quandaries and joys, is neglected. Instead, the copresenters, an MIT instructor and a graduate student, relate from our learning by doing and reflecting. This educational experience does without such typical constraints as predetermined curriculum, answers, or grading. We observe, wonder, experiment, question, read, reflect. We adapt instruments, respond to historical efforts, and invite openings to myth, culture and poetry. How is geometry evident around us? Using straight edge and divider compass, we exploratively construct triangles, split lines, and find other relationships. Noticing geometry underlying Euclid, ancient Indian astronomers, Jantar Mantar observatory, and Galileo, we attempt our own. We observe outdoors. Repeatedly, we relocate the solar filter telescope away from shadow. Projected through a hole, the sun’s image shows tree leaves across its top, not its bottom. What is going on with: sunspots; shadows; image inversion? Peter Heering, visiting our class, posed a mystery contraption. Encouraged to manipulate it(Atwood’s machine), students: spun wheels; hung string terminated by equal weights over its central wheel; observed balanced weights static, and imbalanced weights moving slowly enough to be timed. Conventional instruction and google searches extinguish student initiative and investigation. By doing learning directly, this student is empowered, becoming adept in telescopic observing, improvising with materials, raising questions that resonate with historical ambiguities. Alongside this student doing learning, the teacher’s learning encourages mutual collaboration.

Ahbinav Ghandi