Design of teaching materials on environmental issues

The European Union has recommended reforming science teaching so as to integrate environmental issues into the scientific curriculum. This is to respond to the need to make school a place of civic education where citizenship and decision-making skills are developed.

The main objective of the research group is to design teaching proposals that can foster both deep understanding of the basic physics concepts involved in environmental themes (e.g. related to climate change), and the development of critical thinking that enables citizens to make informed decisions. Great relevance is given to the theme of modeling and scientific argumentation, explored with laboratory activities and text analysis. In them, the perspective of complex systems to study climate and environment is enhanced and, for this purpose, the contents of the science of complexity are educationally reconstructed to emphasize the epistemological and cultural value. Speical attention is also paid to education for sustainability in multi-actor and open-schooling contexts, in which students share values ​​and challenges with their local communities, in a dialogue with researchers, civic organizations and small and medium-sized enterprises.

All the materials are designed and tested in secondary school classes, extracurricular contexts (for example in the PLS - Piano Lauree Scientifiche- laboratories) and in teacher training contexts.

These topics are currently being developed within the H2020 projects SEAS (Science Education for Action and engagement toward Sustainability) and RAISE (Raw mAterIals Students intErnship).

Settori ERC

PE2_16 General physics 

SH4_11 Education: systems and institutions, teaching and learning

SH4_14 Teaching and learning

SH3_2 Environmental change and society

National and international partnerships

SEAS: Science Education for Action and Engagement toward Sustainability (H2020-SwafS-2018-2-two-stage, 01/09/2019 - 31/08/2022). Coordinator: Erik Knein, University of Oslo (www.seas.uio.no).

RAISE: Raw mAterIals Students intErnship. A Wider Society Learning activity of the EIT RawMaterials BP2019, Coordinator: Paolo Dambruoso, CNR-Bologna (https://eitrawmaterials.eu/course/raise/).

PIANO LAUREE SCIENTIFICHE (National project with the aim of improving the connection between secondary schools and scientific departments) (http://www.pls.unibo.it/it/fisica)

Produzione scientifica

Tasquier, G., & Pongiglione, F. (2017). The influence of causal knowledge on the willingness to change attitude towards climate change: results from an empirical study. International Journal of Science Education, 39(13), 1846–1868. doi: 10.1080/09500693.2017.1355078

Tasquier, G., Levrini, O., & Dillon, J. (2016). Exploring students’ epistemological knowledge of models and modelling in science: results from a teaching/learning experience on climate change. International Journal of Science Education, 38(4), 539–563. doi: 10.1080/09500693.2016.1148828

Tasquier, G. (2015). How does epistemological knowledge on modelling influence students’ engagement in the issue of climate change?. Il Nuovo Cimento, 38 C (2015) 112.

Tasquier, G., Pongiglione, F., Levrini, O. (2014). Climate change: an educational proposal integrating the physical and social sciences. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 116, 820-825.

Tasquier, G. (2013). Cambiamenti Climatici e Insegnamento/Apprendimento della Fisica: una Proposta Didattica [Climate Change and Teaching/Learning Physics: a Teaching Proposal]. Giornale di Fisica, 54(03), 173-193.