Abstract:

This paper presents the design of a case to teach/learn mathematics and experimental sciences in an interdisciplinary way in the degree of Primary Education at the Faculty of Education and Sport (University of the Basque Country, UPV/EHU). The main rationale behind this initiative is that in order to solve a specific problem in real life situations, it is often necessary to mobilise jointly the knowledge from different areas.

Taking advantage of a recently installed weather station in the university campus, third year students will be asked about their interest in knowing the air quality of their university campus. This may prompt the need to introduce concepts related to air quality and to assess the relationship between air quality and meteorology in the experimental sciences lectures. The data collected from the station form will constitute the data-base of this project, which will be used by the students in the mathematics sessions to make the descriptive statistical analysis of the measured variables. The data base will also allow the students to make comparisons between the data recorded in the university station and the data measured in several stations of the Air Quality Network managed by the Department of Environment of the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country. After the statistical analysis, joint sessions guided by the mathematics and experimental sciences teachers, will show current strategies that seek to protect citizens from the risks arising from air pollution and to improve their quality of life.

We expect that this type of pedagogical approach will allow students to develop the scientific and mathematical competences on a real case study and, at the same time, provide them information about the quality of the air we breathe. Furthermore, this teaching approach encourages the interdisciplinary work of university teachers from different pedagogic areas, such as mathematics and experimental sciences, which can help pre-service teachers in their future practice. Preliminary results from our implementation will be discussed in the paper.

Keywords:

Interdisciplinarity, problem-based learning, Primary Education, mathematics, experimental sciences, air quality.