Approaching the plant theme in an ESD context guided towards critical thinking in the first cycle of basic education

• Autor(a) principal: Moreira, Filipe T.
• Data de Publicação: 2016
• Outros Autores: Tenreiro-Vieira, Celina
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: https://doi.org/10.34624/id.v8i1.3567

In a society that presents itself constantly changing there is a need to equip young students with tools that allow them to face the uncertain future. An indispensable tool to help overcome future difficulties is their Critical Thinking (CT) skill that could enable them to make more rational decisions. For this purpose, the study, conducted in a 2nd year primary school class, aimed to develop (adapt, create, produce, implement and evaluate) activities that promoted CT in the context of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), based on the theme: Plants. It intended to evaluate the contribution of implemented activities focusing on CT promotion and the construction/mobilization of students’ scientific knowledge, while ascertaining their views and representations towards the developed sessions and activities. A practice-oriented methodology was chosen, based on a research action plan. Data was collected through various instruments using different data collection techniques. Results suggest that these developed activities have contributed to the mobilization/development of students’ critical thinking and the mobilization/construction of scientific knowledge. In the students’ opinion, these sessions, where CT developing activities were implemented, were more motivating and more productive than the other science lessons. From their perspective, these sessions have indeed contributed to the mobilization/development of CT skills and mobilization/construction of scientific knowledge.