New Perspectives in Science Education

Pupils of almost all ages increasingly consume internet videos with scientific content to support their regular science class as well as to entertain themselves in their spare time [1,2]. This interest can be used didactically to motivate them to get involved in scientific issues and to promote a critical approach to medial representations. In our contribution, we present a media didactic concept which focuses on a critical reflection of chemistry related representations in the mass media, like television or youtube videos. On the example of the reaction of alkali metals with water, presented by the infotainment group “Brainics”, pupils are guided to analyze the course of these reactions, finally identifying the violence of the reactions as a fake [3]. The latter is accomplished by a comparison of the Brainiacs video with a reliable video dealing with the same topic published by scientists of the University of Nottingham [4]. In order to realize this concept in class, a WebQuest (WQ) was designed. In addition to the critical reflection, the WQ enables pupils to independently accumulate, structure and evaluate information about properties of alkali metals on selected pages from videos and texts. To promote communication skills, the results of the WebQuests are presented in a subsequent panel discussion. Within this discussion, students play roles of scientists, infotainment producers, program editors, teachers, adolescents or recipient respectively.