“What are legume root nodules?” An example of history of science use for designing and evaluating inquiry-based-learning activities

Abstract

We present the activity "What are legume root nodules?", designed to 7th Grade students, which has been structured around the principles of inquiry-based learning and uses the history of science to help students come to a final answer. The activity is based on a contextualized situation in which it is necessary to answer guiding questions throughout six texts, enriched with photos, schemes, and figures. The activity texts contain historical episodes which aim to help to establish the relationship between legume root nodules and nitrogen fixation. After learning nitrogen fixation, students work with the concept of mutualism and answer a final question about how legume plants survive in poor nitrogen soils. We performed three applications, carried out in different school contexts and collected students' responses to the two final questions of the activity. The results
show that students were able to interpret historical episodes, relate information to construct a hypothesis and evaluate evidence to answer the motivating questions' activity. The answers used to evaluate students' use of concepts and skills provide empirical evidence that encourages the use of both an inquiry-based learning approach and historical elements in the classroom. We emphasize that, although there is a
growing literature advocating a contextualized approach to science education that includes nature of science aspects, there is still a need to focus efforts on production and evaluation of teaching materials suitable for use in the classroom.

Full text

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Book of abstracts
OF THE ISHPSSB & ABFHIB
2017 MEETING
INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR THE
HISTORY, PHILOSOPHY AND SOCIAL
STUDIES OF BIOLOGY (ISHPSSB)
&
ASSOCIAÇÃO BRASILEIRA DE FILOSOFIA E
HISTÓRIA DA BIOLOGIA (ABFHiB)
São Paulo, Brazil
16 to 21 July, 2017

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Due to the possibility of providing a better understanding of the
nature of science and scientific concepts, researchers have advocated for
the inclusion of the history of science at different levels of science
education and, consequently, the approach focused on nature of science
“What are legume root nodules?” An example of history of science use
for designing and evaluating inquiry-based-learning activities
Nathalia Helena Azevedo (Interunit Graduate Studies Program in
Science Teaching, University of São Paulo, Brazil,
helena.nathalia@usp.br) and Daniela Lopes Scarpa (Institute of
Biosciences, University of São Paulo, Brazil, dlscarpa@usp.br)

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has begun to integrate the curriculum parameters around the globe.
However, adequate historical contextualization is still rare and the
history of science that is usually portrayed is linear, anecdotal,
consensual and lacking a wider historical context. Furthermore,
empirical research to assess whether a historical perspective can be
effective for learning concepts and skills is scarce. Inquiry-based
learning is a teaching and learning approach in which both educators and
students share responsibility for learning. In this approach, ideas and
observations are included in the center of the learning experience, and,
by engagement, students are encouraged to develop skills by exploring,
explaining, elaborating and evaluating. Thus, the principles of inquiry-
based learning can help designing and evaluating activities that aim to
explore concepts through the history of science. We present the activity
"What are legume root nodules?", designed to 7th Grade students, which
has been structured around the principles of inquiry-based learning and
uses the history of science to help students come to a final answer. The
activity is based on a contextualized situation in which it is necessary to
answer guiding questions throughout six texts, enriched with photos,
schemes, and figures. The activity texts contain historical episodes
which aim to help to establish the relationship between legume root
nodules and nitrogen fixation. After learning nitrogen fixation, students
work with the concept of mutualism and answer a final question about
how legume plants survive in poor nitrogen soils. We performed three
applications, carried out in different school contexts and collected
students' responses to the two final questions of the activity. The results
show that students were able to interpret historical episodes, relate
information to construct a hypothesis and evaluate evidence to answer
the motivating questions' activity. The answers used to evaluate students'
use of concepts and skills provide empirical evidence that encourages
the use of both an inquiry-based learning approach and historical
elements in the classroom. We emphasize that, although there is a
growing literature advocating a contextualized approach to science
education that includes nature of science aspects, there is still a need to
focus efforts on production and evaluation of teaching materials suitable
for use in the classroom.