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TEACHING RESOURCES INFORMATION

TITLE OF TEACHING RESOURCE

EKFE Chania (Secondary Education Laboratory Center for Physical Sciences at Chania – Crete)

IMAGE

NAME OF PRODUCER

EKFE Chania

WEBSITE OF THE PRODUCT

http://ekfe.chan.sch.gr/

TYPE OF PRODUCT

Web Site/Portal

LEVEL OF CHEMISTRY KNOWLEDGE

Basic, Medium

PEDAGOGICAL APPROACH

Experiential learning, Lab training

SUBJECT AREA

Fundamental Chemistry

TARGET GROUP LEVEL

Primary School, Lower Secondary School, Upper Secondary School

LANGUAGE/S OF TEACHING RESOURCES

Greek

TUTORIAL SUPPORT

DESCRIPTION

Prerequisites: This teaching resource has free access and a large part of it requires standard programs for functioning (eg. MS Powerpoint). However, some teaching proposals (the ones of secondary education) require some additional software such as Adobe Flash Player, Java and Windows Media Player) which are however downloadable freely.

Contents and Task Description: The site is a rich source of educational material for all physical sciences. The teaching resources are available by educational level: Primary School (Dimotiko), Lower Secondary School (Gymnasio) and Upper Secondary School (Lykeio). For each educational level, the material is organized in separate categories such as “Teaching proposals”, “Chemistry Laboratory” and “Simulations”. The Teaching proposals designed for primary school contain a collection of pdf files which include interesting pictures of physical phenomena and photos of simple experimental procedures. In addition, each proposal contains a short description of the aims of each lesson and of the series of steps that need to be followed during the teaching praxis. The subjects which are related to chemistry are the ones referring to the states of matter, mixtures and solutions, basic matter properties (volume, mass, density), heat and acids/bases. The category Chemistry Laboratory dedicated to Primary School (http://ekfe.chan.sch.gr/Dimotiko/lab.html) contains fours sections, of which the section Simple Constructions includes a series of easy to make constructions in class or at home. Some of these constructions help the visualization of microscopic phenomena (eg. The Bohr model of the atom).
The Teaching proposals and Chemistry Laboratory sections referring to Secondary school contain powerpoint presentations, videos, instructions for the teachers, student worksheets.

Aims: The educational material provided aims in helping teachers incorporate laboratory experimentation in the teaching practice in order to stimulate student curiosity, attract attention and induce motivation to engage in chemistry learning. The larger aim is to help students develop the scientific way of thinking and of approaching problems and situations.

Use in class: The material provided can be incorporated in the class practice in different ways. For example, the teacher can either make a simple powerpoint presentation of the available material. However, he/she can also use the instructions given for actually performing real experiments in the school laboratory or for making simple constructions. In all cases, interesting discussions can be initiated afterwards. In addition, the material can be used as a starting point for organizing small science projects.

COMMENTS

The website is one of the few ones containing educational material which is suitable for teaching physical sciences in primary school. The instructions given are very clear and the proposed experimental activities are easy to perform in class either by the teacher alone or by the pupils (under guidance). Even if the activities are not actually performed but only presented, the availability of the colour images can be very effective for making science teaching more appealing and for showing the direct connection of chemistry with everyday life experiences and phenomena. In this way, student interest towards chemistry can be stimulated. The material could be of more benefit if it contained interactive activities. Overall, the material is scientifically reliable.

NAME OF THE REVIEWING ORGANISATION

TEI of Ionian Islands

Comments about this Publication

Your comments are welcome

Date: 2012.10.03

Posted by Rosalia Zunino (Italy)

Message: I think the resource interesting because it presents proposals for pre-primary school (link Προσχολική Αγωγή – pre-school education) and for the second cycle of Primary school (link Δημοτικό - Elementary). In this section there is a link said Suggestions of teaching (Προτάσεις Διδασκαλίας) that leads to proposals for IV and V class in which there are activities of chemistry.
The activities are proposed with PDF files with images and text, therefore they are not interactive and not directly usable by the students. But the activities are very operational and experimental, with engaging and easy to make experiments.
Unfortunately everything is presented in Greek so it needs a complex translation, making the resource little useful for a not-Greek teacher who is looking for activities ideas.
I think that the methodological approach, just because it is very operational, can capture students’ attention.
The resource is useful for teachers and only indirectly for students
I do not think we can define this didactic approach as innovative, but, because it is still rarely applied, surely it must to be enhanced.

National Reports on successful experiences to promote lifelong learning for chemistry The national reports on chemistry successful experiences to promote lifelong learning for chemistry are now available on the related section of the project portal. The reports presents examples of successful experiences in the partner countries and the results of testing of ICT resources with science teachers.