How Practicing Science Teachers Amalgamate their Beliefs with Science

Science teachers shoulder a major responsibility of introducing students to the discipline, thereby shaping their ideas and developing scientific temper. However, little attention has been paid to determine if teachers have the requisite training to achieve this. The focus of the present study is to demonstrate how physics teachers form mental models to amalgamate pseudo-scientific beliefs related to the moon, eclipses and planets with curricular science. We show that teachers acknowledge the fact that their training in science is sometimes in contradiction with their experiences and religious/traditional beliefs. In such situations, they are likely to go by their religious beliefs over scientific training. We hope the present study will draw the attention of the curriculum developers on the need to engage teachers in order to impart the correct ideas about the nature of science and scientific temper.