Abstract:

The importance of an adequate scientific and technological literacy in our society has produced important changes in the teaching-learning processes. Currently, the introduction of robotics in educational institutions is a field to be exploited, due to the growing interest in the pedagogical advantages offered by this technological tool.

Educational robotics helps in the development of competencies, teamwork, critical thinking, problem solving skills, computational thinking and programming language, but it should also serve as a tool for teaching curricular content. The motivation, curiosity and interest shown by students in robotics activities must serve as an ingredient to incorporate robotics into the classroom as a means of learning, and not only as an end.

One of the most difficult scientific contents for primary school students is the Water Cycle. This scientific content presents a series of previous ideas in students that persist, such as the lack of understanding of state changes, the formation of clouds, the inclusion of the subway phase, the influence of living beings and the relationship of the urban cycle in the natural cycle.

Therefore, a robotic board has been designed as a proposal to work on the Water Cycle through educational robotics kits and Scratch programming software. The design of the board has been based on an image that allows showing the different places where the different phases of the cycle occur, so that students must program through sensors so that the robot travels a certain route and can stop at the different points mentioned, in order to obtain information and work that information of each phase. This board is aimed to become a model for future studies to analyze the didactic implications of different educational stages.

In this way, Educational Robotics is expected to be used as a didactic tool in Science Education and to be used in any teaching-learning process of curricular contents, allowing students to learn contents that involve difficulty at the same time that they work the programming language and computational thinking that today's society demands from citizens.

Keywords:

Educational robotics, science education, digital literacy.