Preparing Science Educators for Everyday Science

1. PreparingScience Educators for Everyday Science DevrimGüven, EbruZ.Muğaloğlu, Maria Evagorou &PreSEES Consortium http://ssieurope.net www.facebook.com/Presees The aim of the program is to engage pre-service teachers in critical discussions of everyday science through socio-scientific issues (SSI) and prepare them to teach SSI. The partners designed three modules aiming to present guidelines to pre-service teachers. Socioscientific issues (SSI) are those that significant numbers of people would argue about, without necessarily reaching a conclusion or consent. Socioscientific problems are ill-defined and value-laden, invoking aesthetic, ecological, economic, moral, educational, cultural, religious and recreational values that are constrained by missing knowledge. The ability to deal with everyday scientific issues and socioscientific issues (SSI) has been recognized as an important goal of science education (e.g. Sadler, 2009). Furthermore, the inclusion of SSI in science teaching could move science classes towards unwrapping and engaging discussions and, thus promote dialogic arguments, understanding the nature of science, and conceptual understanding. The inclusion of SSI in the curriculum offers a means of expanding both the curriculum and the range of instructional practices commonly experienced in the school science classroom. Studies in SSI so far have focused on students’ decision making (e.g. Jiménez-Aleixandre & Pereiro-Munoz, 2002), conceptual understanding, and engagement with science (e.g. Albe, 2008). A main gap in research however is how teachers (either pre or in-service) approach everyday science and SSI in their teaching. Waste Treatment Environment Energetic Options Global Warming Nuclear Plants Food Options Geological Riscs FRAMEWORK FOR THE MODULES . EXAMPLES FROM MODULES ARGUMENTS OF GLOBAL WARMING (Module 1) • Reflect on Global warmingactivity • What is your personal opinion about global warming now? What other opinions where there? Why are there different opinions? • What challenges did you have when making a decision on global warming? What are the implications of the existence of the different opinions? • What type of arguments did appear in the activity of GW? Where all these arguments based on evidence or on other things? • Taking into account all the above, what is, for you, a SSI? • Global warming activity • Youarescientificexpertsresponsibletoadviseourgovernment on a proposednewlaw, in thecontext of a disputeabout GW, withvariousstakeholders on theissue: • - Association of car manufacturers • - Environmentalorganisations • - Association of consumers • - Expertgroup on climatechange (IPCC) EATING INSECTS FOR PROTEIN (Module 2) Did you know that an estimated 2 Billion people worldwide consume insects as part of regular diet? ASSESSMENT(Module 3) This project has been carried out with the supportof the European Community and the Life LongLearning Programme. The content of this projectdoes not necessarily reflect the position of theEuropean Community, nor does it involve anyresponsibility on the part of the European Community