Mercedes Varela-Losada’s research while affiliated with University of Vigo and other places

La educación es una pieza clave para afrontar la actual crisis socioambiental. La LOMLOE presume de introducir el espíritu de la Agenda 2030 y promover de esta forma la Sostenibilidad. El objetivo de este artículo es estudiar el impulso que supone este marco para la Educación para la Sostenibilidad. Así, se realizó una comparativa entre las enseñanzas mínimas de la Educación Primaria de la LOMCE y la LOMLOE y un análisis descriptivo del contenido de la ley actual. Los resultados muestran el avance producido en todas las dimensiones propuestas y cómo la LOMLOE ofrece oportunidades para favorecer enfoques educativos acordes con la Educación para la Sostenibilidad. El análisis también muestra carencias relevantes y sugiere la necesidad de formación para el profesorado, la implicación de toda la comunidad educativa y el liderazgo desde la dirección de los centros para su aplicación efectiva.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the presence of systems thinking after an educational proposal on climate sustainability based on reflection and video creation. To evaluate this competency, an evaluation rubric was constructed. Design/methodology/approach This research is a case study with a mixed approach. It was carried out with 82 future teachers of Primary Education, making content analysis of the videos made. For the design of the rubric, a specific review of the literature was conducted. Findings The results showed that trainee teachers can identify, relate and understand interconnected processes, but have difficulties in thinking temporally or in understanding the hidden dimensions of the system. The results reveal how the development of systems thinking in the Climate Change framework is a complex learning process. The rubric created allowed us to systematize the evaluation by making it possible to assess the subskills involved. Originality/value To improve the development of systemic thinking, using real data linked to the consequences of this problem and ICT applications that foster an approximation to future realities is suggested. In addition, conscious and fair decision-making should be promoted on the basis of a transformative education that favors this thinking in interaction with other key competences in sustainability. The innovative rubric allows the evaluation of systemic thinking skills for the study of climate change, conceptualized from the interrelationships of the natural, social and economic dimensions and from its implications for life, on different geographical and temporal levels.

Background: In recent decades, a wide variety of aspects related to astronomical phenomena have been investigated. However, astronomy research in school has not been a very active field compared to other topics. In addition, a great part of that research involves high school or university students. Few studies address the early schooling stages. Objective: Our goal is to make a narrative and bibliometric review of the articles published in relevant scientific journals from 2009 to 2019 on astronomy teaching in early childhood (0–6 years) and primary education (6–12 years), using the Big Ideas in astronomy as a conceptual framework (Lelliott Rollnick, 2010). The purposes are to characterise these studies, investigate how research on astronomy education has fostered our understanding of its learning, and analyse which methodologies and theoretical frameworks are the most frequent in them. Design: A systematic narrative and bibliometric literature review is carried out with the help of specific software (Bibliometrix and VOSwiever). Setting and participants: To locate the articles to be analysed, we used the ERIC - Education Resources Information Center resource database. We also selected research works in English centred on the educational stages of early childhood and/or primary education whose focus is one or more of the Big Ideas. They must have been published between 2009 and 2019 in journals dedicated to the didactics of experimental sciences and indexed in JCR (2019). Data collection and analysis: The data is collected systematically using a descriptive coding instrument. A bibliometric analysis is carried out, providing basic information on the analysed articles, relevant journals, trend by year of publications on the subject, publications by country and international collaboration, number of citations of the articles, and coauthorship networks, publications by year and genre, identification of the most addressed concepts through word clouds and networks of key concepts combined with cluster analysis. Likewise, we analyse issues such as the most frequent conceptual frameworks, the educational levels corresponding to the articles, and the most studied Big Ideas. Results: There is little research in international journals on astronomy teaching in the educational stages analysed, and there are practically no articles focused on early childhood education. The journal that has published the most on the subject is by far the International Journal of Science Education, and most of the studies are from the USA and published by women. The author with the most significant impact worldwide is Julia D. Plummer. The most frequent conceptual frameworks are those of conceptions and mental models. The cluster analysis of the keywords has made it possible to identify four thematic fields: mental models and conceptual change, teachers’ and students’ conceptions of astronomy, science and school, and other relevant aspects of astronomy teaching. The Big Ideas studied the most are the Earth–Sun–Moon system (combined or not with the stars) and day and night. Conclusions: The research with the highest global impact in recent years on the teaching of astronomy in early childhood and primary education has been analysed, describing its characteristics and centres of interest, demonstrating that this issue does not receive much attention in the literature.

A la hora de plantearse la realización de actividades relacionadas con la enseñanza de los aspectos astronómicos, se presentan problemas prácticos evidentes que no ayudan a desarrollar una adecuada actividad científica escolar. Las TIC son un instrumento de gran utilidad para sortear estas dificultades, dado que permiten reproducir los fenómenos celestes y experimentar con ellos. El objetivo de este artículo es, en concreto, reflexionar sobre la utilidad de las simulaciones informáticas para la enseñanza de los aspectos histórico-astronómicos. Como muestra de sus posibilidades se presentan simulaciones que pueden realizarse para visualizar diversos fenómenos astronómicos descubiertos por Galileo Galilei.

Actualmente son necesarias propuestas educativas que promuevan la sostenibilidad mediante activismo digital. El objetivo de este estudio fue evaluar la movilización de competencias digitales docentes a través de la creación de storytellings sobre la Fast Fashion. Su análisis mostró cómo estas experiencias pueden propiciar el desarrollo de capacidades de comunicación y colaboración, como son la participación para la creación de contenidos, la participación ciudadana en línea o la capacidad para compartir contenidos. Los vídeos creados relacionan las acciones cotidianas con las consecuencias socioambientales y llaman a la transición hacia formas de consumo conscientes, mostrando su potencial creativo e inspirador.

Transformative learning is a key element when it comes to making progress toward sustainable development. This goal requires an education that fosters the empowerment of people and the transformation of institutions, prepares for the necessary changes, facilitates resilience and encourages sustainable actions. The aim of this paper is to review the academic production on transformative learning in relation to the pursuit of sustainable development. To do so, a bibliometric analysis was conducted of the publications included in the Scopus databases for the 2003–2020 period, in order to explore its evolution, identify the main themes of which the field of knowledge is composed, and identify its main references and the network of collaborations between researchers and universities worldwide. During this period, scientific production has increased considerably, with a particular focus on adult education and competency development. At the same time, English-speaking dominance and the prevalence of Western origin has been observed. There is a need for more global, connected, and pluralistic research that is focused on diverse sociocultural contexts, research that factors in inequality and environmental justice and which calls into question the current socioeconomic model. A debate should also be started on which means of publication are the most appropriate for defending the quest for sustainability.

The aim of our research was to study attitudinal trends in Spanish trainee teachers regarding Global Environmental Change (GEC), in order to identify elements that should be enhanced in their education. The Scale of Global Environmental Change (SGEC) was used as a measurement instrument to explore attitudes on how to deal with GEC. A cluster analysis of the scores of the four SGEC factors (N = 950) was carried out in order to segment the cases into groups of similar response profiles. Two solutions are proposed: one made up of two clusters (Concerned and Disengaged) and the other of four clusters (Egocentric, Indifferent, Sceptical and Committed). Furthermore, we have analysed whether some of the students’ characteristics significantly influence their inclusion in one cluster or another. The results of this study show that among trainee teachers there are sceptical, self-centered and indifferent trends, which do not correspond to people capable of promoting the transformation needed to deal with GEC. Therefore, it is necessary to improve their training with new educational models that favour the recognition of the real origin of socio-environmental problems and provide them with skills to promote individual and social responsibility.

El desafío ambiental es uno de los principales retos que debe afrontar el profesorado. La finalidad de este estudio fue conocer cómo las características y circunstancias personales pueden influir en las actitudes del futuro profesorado hacia una educación ambiental transformadora. Para ello se empleó una muestra de 889 estudiantes de los Grados en Educación Infantil y Primaria españoles, analizándose sus puntuaciones en los factores de la escala validada Attitudes Scale toward Environmental Education (ASEE), mediante técnicas de estadística descriptiva e inferencial. Los resultados obtenidos indican que factores como el sexo, el tipo de escuela preuniversitaria y la educación de las familias deben ser tenidos en cuenta, ya que tienen implicaciones prácticas para la formación de los futuros docentes en lo que denominamos una educación ambiental transformadora