Citation for the Presentation of the ICPE Medal
to Prof. Dr. Dieter NACHTIGALL
Dortmund, Germany
1998
Prof. Dr. Dieter Nachtigall, born on February 4th, 1927, is awarded the ICPE medal because his remarkable contributions to physics education have been outstanding and international in their scope and influence, and have extended over a considerable period of time.
He first started a career in nuclear physics in Dresden, Juelich and Genève at CERN, resulting in more than 40 publications on radiation physics. But in spite of these successful activities he became more and more interested in problems of physics education, and finally switched to this scientific field. More than 60 publications show him as a highly successful researcher in this field, the UNESCO document No. 48 "Internalizing Physics", the Proceedings of the "International Conference on Physics Teacher Education 1992" and several textbooks translated into Chinese being among them.
After about ten years of intensive research in physics education on the local level within Germany, Dieter Nachtigall started another and international career as a Visiting Professor, mostly in developing countries. The list of sites where he went to help to develop and improve physics curricula for physics education, both at school and at university level, is remarkable. He has been affiliated to more than 40 universities in Asia, others in Africa and in South America. Several universities in China, a special focus of his activities, have nominated him an "Honorary Professor". In many cases he founded a completely new system of pre- and in-service teacher training based on direct experience with low cost - hands on - experiments. He always put a special emphasis on finding out the preconceptions of students and the possible misconceptions of teachers. A new teacher self-concept was always the main focus of his activities.
Summarizing his activities he may be characterized as an enthusiastic ambassador in physics education, who is accepted in foreign countries not only because of his scientific proficiency but also because of his sensitivity to local cultures.
Prof. Paul Black
Chairman of ICPE