ARTICLE Discovering Socio-cultural Aspects of Science Through Artworks Burcu Gülay Güney 1 & Hayati Şeker 2 # Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2017 Abstract Scientific literacy is one of the primary purposes of science education which briefly focuses on using and interpreting scientific explanations, understanding science within its culture. However, science curricula emphasize science with its cognitive aspects and under- estimate affective and aesthetic aspects of science. Science education needs to cover beauty of science for students to cross borders between their own culture and culture of science and to achieve the aim of scientific literacy. Relating aesthetic aspects of science with content of science and paving the way for aesthetic experiences through artworks may enrich science education. The purposes of this study are to discuss the need of integrating aesthetic aspects of science in science instruction and to propose examples and pedagogical suggestions to promote aesthetic experiences into the science education. Artworks are selected to present socio-cultural aspects of science to demonstrate the culture of science, their stories are explained, and pedagogical suggestions are proposed. Advantages and difficulties of using artworks in science instruction are discussed as a result of the study. 1 Introduction What is the purpose of science education? In addressing this important question, national standards and instructional materials typically rely on the concept of Bscientific literacy^ as a core point (Sadler and Zeidler 2009). Science education within the framework of scientific literacy aims to achieve the following objectives: (1) to enable students to understand science as a cultural force, (2) to help them understand that science and technology are interrelated, (3) to make them technologically literate, (4) to help them utilize science in making sense of everyday occurrences, (5) to encourage them to consider science as a way to understand the Sci & Educ DOI 10.1007/s11191-017-9924-0 * Burcu Gülay Güney Burcugulay.guney@yahoo.com Hayati Şeker Hayatiseker@hotmail.com 1 Kadıköy, Istanbul, Turkey 2 Üsküdar, Istanbul, Turkey