Abstract:

The natural sciences are currently facing new challenges. Development in scientific knowledge allows increased discovery methods into the nature of objects and phenomena. However, the available knowledge becomes more complicated and less understandable when communicating with others. Usually, therefore, teachers try to update teaching with innovative educational methods, forms or means (currently, e.g., by constructivist ones), which put at the center of teaching - the student, his interests and ways of thinking, or everyday experience. One option is to implement various visual education strategies, such as graphic diagrams, posters, pictures, comics, schemes, and more. The presentation of information and ideas in visual form is proving to be extremely important, as it critically helps the educational process. Comics are an art form that influences human feelings and transmits information through symbols and images. It represents a combination of humor and exaggeration while presenting the subject using the most uncomplicated possible lines. The paper aims to present specific educational tools - educational comics with science topics and to approach their educational potential on specific examples. Also, the approach has been worked out on how to implement these non-traditional means into one's science teaching effectively. In this paper, we describe the educational experience with the current implementation in the teaching process of the subject of chemistry. Based on simple empirical research carried out in primary school, we found out its justification in the teaching process of the subject of chemistry. Based on the results, we can state that the group of students who received information with the implementation of educational comics succeeded in didactic tests aimed at verifying knowledge better than the control group. We also supported our research with a questionnaire survey addressed to primary school teachers, aimed at mapping their views on the usefulness of comics in education. The paradox is that, although teachers think that visual aids, including comics, are attractive to students and can think of using them regularly, they are skeptical about being able to create these means by themselves and at the same time declare that they would use them if these materials were available in their mother tongue as well.

Keywords:

Comics, Chemistry, Demonstration, Didactic experiment, Educational experience.