Abstract:

According to specific surveys, the Spanish society, like the rest of European countries societies, highly values the social and economic importance of science and technology [1]. However, Spanish population has a moderate level of approach to scientific information and shows a rather poor assessment of the scientific-technical training received as citizens, consumers and users, or, in other words, of its scientific competency (SC).

The huge incidence of science and technology in the actual welfare and social development justifies inclusion of SC in the early stages of education and makes the primary school teacher (PST) a key figure in the effective acquisition of a meaningful knowledge in terms of Science, Technology and Society. At these educational stages, the correct construction of meaningful learning in the natural sciences (NSc) requires of experimental activities, appropriate to the child's intellectual and cognitive development and its connection with the simplest scientific concepts and theories [2].

Nowadays, the Spanish primary school and particularly at the Autonomous Community of the Balearic Islands (CAIB) is experiencing a huge boom in experimental activities in NSc, which translates into the need to update and improve the skills and abilities of teachers to take advantage of this didactic tool.

Bearing in mind this main objective, a group of professors from the Department of Chemistry of the University of the Balearic Islands (UIB) have developed the didactic project Aula Didàctica d'Experimentació en Ciències per a l'educació primària (ADEC). Around fifty very experienced PSTs from all over Mallorca took part in the first pilot edition of ADEC, held in the UIB campus, in January and February of 2018. PSTs worked on small groups of three, in 3-hour practical sessions, under the close supervision of the university professor. The experiments deal with physical and chemical properties of matter (session I) and with chemical energy (session II) and were chosen attending to their suitability to cover the compulsory NSc curriculum, safety, simplicity and everydayness of the materials used and their close relationship between the experiment and daily life.

At the time of experimentation, a fruitful dialogue was established among participants, so the fundamentals, the competences and the didactic objectives of each experiment were discussed in detail. The practical work was complemented with teaching units of the topics covered in each session.

On a scale of four – low, moderate, good and excellent- the participating teachers give 3.9 points to ADEC’s didactic methodology, which include the resources and materials, the introductory theoretical classes, the tutor talks, the answering to questions, etc. With no exception, they expressed their intention to transfer the experiments from the workshop to the primary school classroom. The excellent reception and results obtained in this first pilot edition, encourages us to continue with the project. In the coming months we will launch new editions with new content, but with the same didactic methodology

References:
[1] OECD (2015), “Public perceptions of science and technology”, in OECD Science, Technology and Industry Scoreboard 2015: Innovation for growth and society, OECD Publishing, Paris.
[2] Fitzgerald, A., & Smith, K. (2016). Science that Matters: Exploring Science Learning and Teaching in Primary Schools. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 41(4)

Keywords:

Natural sciences, Scientific competence, primary school, practical work.