Promoting Science-Technology-Society/Critical Thinking Orientation in Basic Education

Abstract

Science-Technology-Society (STS) orientation, aiming to promote students’ critical thinking (CT), is one of the main goals of science education in various countries, including Portugal. However, teachers do not have explicitly STS-/CT-focused orientation resources that can help them develop practices that promote students’ CT. For that purpose, the “Litomóvel Project” was developed, centered on the topic of “continental drift and plate tectonics.” The goals of the study were (i) to develop innovative strategies that promote the articulation between a nonformal setting and the school, (ii) to develop didactic resources (a teacher didactic guide and a student observation notebook) with an STS/CT orientation so as to explore the potential of the Visionarium – a nonformal educational context – and (iii) to evaluate the impact of the didactic resources developed for K12 students. The resources developed were implemented in that nonformal context and solved by students on the day they visited the Visionarium. During the implementation process, with CT-oriented strategies like questioning, small group activities, role-play, debate and the use of case studies, and based on several sources, information was collected using different instruments. The results obtained reveal that the resources created opportunities for students to mobilize, in an integrated manner, CT abilities and scientific knowledge.