88519 - Workshop Activities: Elements of Ecology (CDE)

Academic Year 2021/2022

  • Teaching Mode: Traditional lectures
  • Campus: Bologna
  • Corso: Single cycle degree programme (LMCU) in Primary teacher education (cod. 8540)

Course contents

Science labs: an interdisciplinary lab and disciplinary labs

(only for students who started their graduate course in/after A. Y. 2016/2017)

ONLY FOR THE ACADEMIC YEAR 2021/2022 AND ONLY FOR SCIENTIFIC LABORATORIES

(on behalf of the Teaching Board of the Single Cycle Degree of Primary Teacher Education on 06/16/2021)

The unprecedented situation associated to the sanitary emergence prompted some modifications to the well-established plan of laboratories, only for the academic year 2021/2022 and only for scientific laboratories (disciplinary and interdisciplinary). Recall the complicated logistics, some turns of scientific laboratories will take place at the Opificio Golinelli (with no remote attending), while other will be delivered online through Microsoft Teams only.

Specifically, during April/May 2022 there will be 5 disciplinary laboratories (two Chemistry laboratories, two Physics laboratories and one Biology laboratory) and 7 interdisciplinary laboratories entirely held at the Opificio Golinelli (with no remote attending). Moreover, there will be 1 entirely online disciplinary laboratory for each discipline and 1 entirely online interdisciplinary laboratory. During July, there will be 1 entirely online Biology disciplinary laboratory and 1 entirely online interdisciplinary laboratory.

The choice will be up to the single student, who will be allowed to select the desired participation option. This is strictly associated to the laboratory date: it will not be allowed to take part in a laboratory held at the Opificio Golinelli through Microsft Teams, nor will it be allowed to take part in an online laboratory from the Opificio Golinelli. All scientific laboratories are equivalent in both flavors, and the same presence, participation, hand in, and assessment rules will hold. In every applicable date, the student will be admitted to an online laboratory (either disciplinary or interdisciplinary) only providing the positive reply of the AQ commission, which retains the right to reject or approve the request (as explicitly stated on the Website of the graduate course).

SCIENTIFIC LABORATORIES: OVERVIEW AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

Starting from A. Y. 2018/2019, science labs have been revisited and improved, resulting not only in the reorganization of the disciplinary laboratories but also in the realization of interdisciplinary laboratories spanning over Physics, Chemistry, Ecology and Biology.

Given the 360° education required for future primary school teachers, these laboratories were planned to be both interdisciplinary, thus involving the four scientific disciplines, and multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary as well: maximum effort will be put into highlighting links with non-scientific knowledge, in order to clarify that there is no dichotomy between sciences and humanities.

The main goals of this rearrangement of the scientific education of teachers are to:

• stimulate curiosity towards scientific themes;

• highlight the ethic and social impact of science and technology;

• communicate the importance of delivering a scientific education starting from the lowest school levels;

• provide conceptual and practical tools mandatory to plan and carry out science-based activities with pupils.

Science labs focused on single disciplines are activated as well, after being improved following aforementioned goals and rationales.

The interdisciplinary laboratory deals with a topic underpinning all the scientific disciplines involved in the master degree with the aim of showing that the same issue can be investigated under different frameworks, each related to a different discipline, and how we can obtain “a big picture” of a given issue by integrating all the different aspects. Disciplinary laboratories, dealing with Physics, Chemistry, Ecology, and Biology, are strictly interconnected with lectures: these classes have the specific purpose of “putting into practice, showing, and touching” some of the course’s topics.

Students will be divided into small work teams and will carry out simple experiments. The lab teacher will conduct also the discussion of results. Suitable experiments have been laid down so that they can be easily reproduced at pre-primary and primary schools.

The following disciplinary laboratories have been planned:

“Light and colour”

“Touching DNA”

“Light and sight”

On the other hand, the planned interdisciplinary laboratory is:

Not just HtwoO: The unexpected features of water

Students must follow two laboratories: the interdisciplinary laboratory and one of the disciplinary laboratories of their choice. The scheduling will be communicated before the beginning of the course.

Each laboratory provides 1 CFU, meaning 8 presence hours and 17 homework hours. In fact, laboratories involve not only the active participation of students but also a “final product”. After the completion of the laboratory experiences, where some disciplinary aspects are investigated and some strategies for stimulating scientific knowledge are proposed, the planning of a didactic activity is requested (which might be useful during school trainings as well).

Students will be graded by lab teachers with -1, 0, or +1 (on a 30 scale). The grade obtained in one of the disciplinary laboratories will add to the final score of the Physics course, while the grade obtained in the interdisciplinary laboratory will add to the final score of the integrated Chemistry and Ecology course. These grades will be available up to the completion of the grading procedure. You cannot register for any disciplinary exam (Elements of General Biology, Elements of Chemistry and Ecology, Elements of Physics) unless you have attended both a disciplinary laboratory and an interdisciplinary laboratory.

Office hours

See the website of Federico Plazzi

SDGs

Clean water and sanitation Oceans Life on land

This teaching activity contributes to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals of the UN 2030 Agenda.