Abstract:

Using interdisciplinary / inter-subject / cross-curricular relations in teaching (not only) natural sciences has increasing importance in modern educational techniques and procedures. In the Czech Republic, the teaching in elementary schools often lacks such an attitude and natural science topics are usually taught separately, with missing or only partial interconnections. Also, scientific attention focused on interdisciplinarity in Czech education is poor and insufficient. The project NATURE (University of Ostrava and Palacký University Olomouc) makes efforts to fill this gap, both in research and teaching.

This article builds on the contribution NOCAR, D. et al. Interdisciplinary relations with mathematics in the teaching of natural science realized within the project NATURE (In INTED2019 Proceedings), which dealt with the definition of interdisciplinary / inter-subject / cross-curricular relations in teaching especially in terms of terminology within the educational environment in the Czech Republic. The mentioned project NATURE was introduced, which is just focused on strengthening pedagogical competencies of elementary school teachers in natural science subjects (biology, chemistry, physics and geography) including interdisciplinary relations between themselves and with mathematics too. As part of the project, sample worksheets on human biology were prepared for the subject biology and in the framework of action research, these worksheets were pilot tested at selected elementary schools.

Human biology is a subject, which is predetermined very appropriately for using a multi-level interdisciplinary approach in teaching. Border sciences are applied here at the boundaries of biological and non-biological: biophysics, biochemistry, biomathematics, and others.
In our action research, we incorporated the knowledge of principal natural sciences, such as chemistry, physics and mathematics, into both theoretical and practical lessons of human skeletal and muscle systems in selected elementary schools. While the chemistry regards only the skeletal system (chemical composition of bones) and the physics relates exclusively to muscle system issues (the study of muscle work and power), the mathematics penetrates and interconnects both of them.

At first, we prepared and tested the worksheets encompassing assessment of body height based on long bone lengths and calculation of muscle work and power. Subsequently, we planned and realized the research-based day focused on human somatometry and osteometry and calculation of body indexes, group averages of somatometric values and body height and sex assessment based on measuring human long bone lengths and circumferences. In the article, we present the results of the above-mentioned pilot testing of worksheets and research-based days at selected elementary schools.

Keywords:

Interdisciplinary relations, inter-subject relations, cross-curricular relations, human biology, worksheets, research-based days.