It is well known that a high capacity of abstraction is necessary to assimilate concepts connected with the geological time perception, with the stratigraphical interpretation and with the paleoenvironmental reconstructions. At the same time evidences are circumstantials and they represent a further obstacle for the students to understand the succession of events, also catastrophic, spread in the geological time. These difficulties are particularly remarkable with students of the Primary School. They are of an age in which a reasoning grounded on hard facts and on direct relationship with the object of the learning, prevails on abstract reasoning. The Messinian crisis of salinity is a right topic to experiment didactic strategies aimed to exceed such difficulties and to facilitate not only the learning of notions, but especially, the comprehension of concepts. For this purpose, a didactic pilot itinerary has been scheduled. It has been tested by 3 classes of the Primary School, located in the area where Messinian geological evidences are frequent and belong to the daily landscape of the population. For a long time, these evidences have been used for experimental activities in field, proposed by the didactic structures of the Civic Natural History Museum “Craveri” of Bra. After the practical experience, conducted in the laboratory and in the field, how can the teachers verify if the tasks elaborated by the students, (written answers, drawings, panels, …) are just consequence of a simple memorization of given explanations, or if they are due to a personal conceptualization of new ideas, integrated with previous concepts and ideas of the students and functional for application to new events? The evaluation of the results produced during the experience, is consequent to the analysis of written tests and graphic elaborates, and is finally compared with analogous learning situations on similar themes, developed in other contexts of the Piedmont territory (e.g. Astigiano in Ruggiero, 2008 and Canavese, in Gimigliano & Ferrero, 2006).
La percezione del tempo geologico nella Scuola Primaria attraverso metodologie sperimentali interattive: il significato dei gessi del Messiniano.
FERRERO, Elena;
2008-01-01
Abstract
It is well known that a high capacity of abstraction is necessary to assimilate concepts connected with the geological time perception, with the stratigraphical interpretation and with the paleoenvironmental reconstructions. At the same time evidences are circumstantials and they represent a further obstacle for the students to understand the succession of events, also catastrophic, spread in the geological time. These difficulties are particularly remarkable with students of the Primary School. They are of an age in which a reasoning grounded on hard facts and on direct relationship with the object of the learning, prevails on abstract reasoning. The Messinian crisis of salinity is a right topic to experiment didactic strategies aimed to exceed such difficulties and to facilitate not only the learning of notions, but especially, the comprehension of concepts. For this purpose, a didactic pilot itinerary has been scheduled. It has been tested by 3 classes of the Primary School, located in the area where Messinian geological evidences are frequent and belong to the daily landscape of the population. For a long time, these evidences have been used for experimental activities in field, proposed by the didactic structures of the Civic Natural History Museum “Craveri” of Bra. After the practical experience, conducted in the laboratory and in the field, how can the teachers verify if the tasks elaborated by the students, (written answers, drawings, panels, …) are just consequence of a simple memorization of given explanations, or if they are due to a personal conceptualization of new ideas, integrated with previous concepts and ideas of the students and functional for application to new events? The evaluation of the results produced during the experience, is consequent to the analysis of written tests and graphic elaborates, and is finally compared with analogous learning situations on similar themes, developed in other contexts of the Piedmont territory (e.g. Astigiano in Ruggiero, 2008 and Canavese, in Gimigliano & Ferrero, 2006).
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