New Perspectives in Science Education

Edition 13

Accepted Abstracts

Effect of a Short Intervention Using a Socioscientific Issue through PBL in Students’ NOS Conceptions

Cristina Sousa, Universidade do Porto (Portugal)

Abstract

Teaching-learning about the Nature of Science is fundamental for scientific literacy [1]. The impact of invasive species in the extinction of native species constitutes a socioscientific issue [2], that is, a problem that requires students to consider scientific issues of social significance and that includes the evaluation of several concepts and considerations in order to arrive at an informed solution [3]. Students participating in this study (n=35) were enrolled in a Portuguese State-funded school, between 13 and 16 years old. The PBL intervention was performed according to DiCarlo in the academic year of 2018/2019, in two sessions (100 min total), in Life Sciences classes, using a scaffold as a paper-and-pencil activity. By analyzing the contents of the scaffold, we were able to detect some misconceptions that were addressed in the final discussion about NOS. We observed that 7 out of 9 groups of students were able to complete that any research in Biology starts with a question and that 8 out of 9 groups of students were able to correlate the introduction of invasive plants with disturbance of ecosystem equilibrium. All the students were able to propose a solution to the proposed problem, however, it is suggested to explore this unit in at least 180 min to increase the number of students able to propose a research question related to the results presented. This explicit and reflexive NOS teaching proposal was effective for learning of both NOS and ecological concepts, in accordance with others that describe other effective short interventions on students’ NOS conceptions [4].

Keywords: Problem-Based Learning; Socioscientific Issue; Nature of Science; Students’ conceptions; Biological invasions.

References:
[1] Roberts, D. & Bybee, R. (2014). Scientific Literacy, Science Literacy, and Science Education. In Lederman, N. & Abell (Ed.) Handbook of Research on Science Education, Volume II (Chapter 27). New York: Routledge.
[2] Sousa, C. & Chagas, I. (2018). Using Nature of Science Enriched-PBL in Pre-Service Science Teacher Education. In Conference proceedings “New perspectives  in science education” (p592-595). Itália: Libreriauniversitaria edizione.
[3] Sadler, T. D. (2004). Informal Reasoning Regarding Socioscientific Issues: A Critical Review of Research. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 41(5), 513-536.
[4] Williams, C. T. & Rudge, D. W. (2016). Emphasizing the History of Genetics in an Explicit and Reflective Approach to Teaching the Nature of Science: A Pilot Study. Science & Education 25, 407–427.

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