Abstract:

This study is part of a Ph.D. investigation based on Research and Development (R&D) ideas, which aims to understand how to develop learning resources inspired by comics for science communication and education (science comics) – in this case, specifically in the Health Education field.

The methodological approach applied is the Design Thinking for Educators combined with principles of qualitative research. The Design Thinking process has five phases: discovery, interpretation, ideation, experimentation, and evolution. This study will describe the development process of the interactive learning resource, focusing on the ideation phase, a creative moment of the process in which divergent thinking works to produce new ideas that will be tested and evaluated in the following phases. In this study, the ideation phase involves selecting the scientific content, creating the narrative, and defining the design of the learning resource.

The entire ideation process was carried out collaboratively, involving the research team and specialists from a Portuguese science center. The specialists took part in a scientific, narrative/literary, and pedagogical validation of the stories created by the research team.

The result is a collection of three interactive learning resources based on science comics, dealing with stories concerning three health areas: hygiene and interaction with the environment; nutrition and physical exercise; and accidents and hospital environment. These resources were developed for use in an activity in a non-formal educational context (in a science center) with children from Primary School.

The first conclusions of the study indicate that, for the effective development of learning resources based on comics for science communication and education, it is essential:
(1) to build a multidisciplinary team that guarantees the validation of all aspects of the product;
(2) to deeply understand the context of use;
(3) to be aware of the educational needs of the target audience;
(4) to define a teaching strategy capable of enhancing all the features of the resource.

Acknowledgements:
This work is financially supported by National Funds through FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P., under the projects (https://doi.org/10.54499/UIDB/00194/2020) and UIDP/00194/2020 (https://doi.org/10.54499/UIDP/00194/2020) and under the individual research grant 2020.07278.BD.

Keywords:

Learning resources, science education, science communication, comics, design thinking.