New Perspectives in Science Education

In this work we present an experience carried out in the 2012/2013 academic year with 230 students in the fourth year of the Degree in Primary Teaching in the Faculty of Education at the University of Extremadura. The work has been developed within the framework of the course Knowledge of the Natural Environment in Primary Education within the knowledge area of Didactics of Experimental Sciences, in order to overcome the rejection and disinterest in learning physics that most students feel. This course covers the scientific and educational content that will enable the primary teacher to perform its teaching in relation to the Knowledge of the Natural taught. One of the objectives of this course is: “To train future teachers of primary education to meet the challenges of the educational system and adapt the lessons to the training needs of the 6 to 12 years old stage of the educational system, performing their functions under the principle of collaboration and teamwork”.

In order to achieve this goal, in this research it has been designed and planned the development of different laboratory experiences that could be used to teach physics concepts to elementary school students. This is intended, from a conceptual, procedural and didactical point of view, to create teaching tools that foster meaningful learning of science content in children. The methodology has been carried out based on cooperative and collaborative learning techniques in which have been developed and coordinated the experiences that have been part of the workshop elaborated on "The Magic of Physics". The experiments selected by our students, future teachers of elementary school, are based on observations, curiosities and very simple interpretations of the everyday environment of the child, which had a surprising character to arouse interest and the sense of wonder in them, thus converting a physics laboratory in an attractive activity for children. For the qualitative validation of the work the opinions of the students who participated in the experience have been collected. The results obtained in the analysis of the data have shown the usefulness of such methods as teaching and learning strategies in science for primary education.