Abstract:

In this paper, we present the interdisciplinary project "Elementary, dear Watson; Short Detective Stories and Science", an optional subject for the curriculum of 3rd year secondary school students in the IES Antoni Llidó (Xàbia, Alicante). The project started on the academic year 2018-2019 and resulted from the collaboration of the Spanish and Physics and Chemistry Departments.

Our main objective was to improve our students' scientific and linguistic competences using mystery short stories and to evaluate whether this methodology was more motivational than those we used in the rest of the curriculum. The stories were chosen from a variety of authors (from Chesterton to Asimov), with the criterion that the key to solving the mystery should lie on the understanding of a scientific concept. The chosen authors in this study are different from the usual ones, as one of the most studied is Arthur Conan Doyle.

The students worked on each story cooperatively both from the scientific and the literary viewpoint. On the scientific side, the activities focused on the understanding of the concept (poisons, phosphorescence, force, gravity…). On the literary side, the structure, characters, and plot of each story were analyzed. Students researched the authors and studied the functionality of science as an engine of action. We teachers worked jointly in the preparation and elaboration of the course materials and in tutoring the students’ projects.

Available exhibitions related to the subject were included in the course’s activities. One of these activities, an interview with Professor Bertomeu, a History of Chemistry (Toxicology) expert from the University of Valencia and a visit to the temporal exhibition (In)visible Toxics, at the Lopez Piñero Institute, introduced a change in the initially designed evaluation procedures, since the students themselves proposed to investigate a real case. Thus, the course’s final project consisted in the publication of the interview in a local scientific diffusion magazine (DAUALDEU, number 16, pages 52 to 56) and the recording of a video trailer about a real nineteenth-century case, the notorious Lafarge poisoning case.

Students’ conclusions in the final project showed that the methodology was motivational. They recognized an improvement in their reading comprehension and oral and writen expression as well as their scientific skills. A great variety of activities were carried out (laboratory practices, dialogical gatherings, interview, autonomous research, play acting and video recording, ...) that covered practically all key educational competences. The students also extracted the basic characteristics of short detective stories as a literary genre (structure, character treatment, use of science ...). The structure of the interview and the cinematographic story were worked on. The study of a real historical case (interview to an expert and visit to the exhibition) has allowed them to understand better the complex relationships between science and justice.

This methodology has also developed the students’ critical sense. It was important for us to treat Science in real contexts, so students would learn that the same educational material could be worked on from two different areas that help each other. Science and literature are not disjoint fields and the students have discovered that it is possible to talk about science through the study of the functionality of science as the engine of action in a literary story.

Keywords:

Interdisciplinary projects, Secondary Education, Phiscys, Chemistry, Literature, Detective Stories.