Teaching and learning to think about the nature of science: a card game as a resource in primary education

Abstract

[eng] This article presents a cooperative card game, as an innovative resource to teach nature of science (NoS) in primary education, which develops a gamified analogy of scientific practice about the discovery of the laws of nature. The foundation bases on the theory of serious learning games and on the explicit and reflective pedagogy required to teach NoS; in addition, the game is a flexible and open resource that can be adapted to the needs of diverse students and helps to alleviate the lack of resources and the scarce training of teachers on NoS teaching. The practice of the game provides opportunities to learn and develop some of the scientific thinking skills involved with NoS topics such as observation, evidence, argumentation, interpretation, reasoning, and the social skills of team collaboration and competition with colleagues. The methodology presents the context and the didactic content of the card game and the rules and procedures of its application to sixth grade primary school students, under their teachers' planning. Some preliminary results of game's practice and impact include the instruments (the teaching sequence, students' activity guides and the reading on a real scientific case of law discovery), some students' learning productions and some qualitative evaluation of the game experience, from teachers' and students' perceived satisfaction, motivation and interest, as experienced throughout the development of the card game. The attainments of the game experience for student learning and teacher training are discussed, as well as some alternatives, limitations and improvements of the card game experience, regarding the complex teaching of NoS topics to primary school students.