Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

This work is carried out within the framework of a research project at the UNC. It presents a teaching proposal for natural sciences at primary level. It articulates to a specific didactic model, a strategy of communicative interaction coherent with it. It also shows a concrete example to be taken to the classroom on some Biology contents. The purpose of this presentation is to provide a frame of reference to reflect on an alternative for the teaching of science that is coherent with the current curricular requirements for this level.

The objective of the program presented is to train teachers and develop practices related to environmental issues in the school units involved, thus initiating a process of changing values and attitudes in order to improve the quality of teaching. The fundamentals, principles and practices used by the program and the experiences carried out between 1995 and 1999 are presented.

Towards an Environmental Pedagogy. A proposal for an epistemological foundation of environmental practice Interview with José Gutiérrez Pérez. Department of Pedagogy, Research Methods and Educational Diagnosis Area, University of Granada, Spain.

Environmental issues and university education. A contribution to the incorporation of the environmental dimension in the psychology career. Master in Methodology of Scientific and Technical Research, Universidad Nacional de Entre Ríos.

This paper analyzes written Biology tests in order to determine which evaluation criteria are mostly taken into account in this type of exam. The methodology used arises from the modification of already established criteria to indicate some cognitive abilities. The results show that practically all the contents evaluated in the analyzed tests are of a memoristic type.

Abundance and Deficiency in the Thought of Mario Bunge. Doctorate in Educational Sciences. Catholic University of Córdoba. Argentina.

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This work is part of a research project based on the "teacher-centered mediational model", which attempts to develop methodologies, procedures and instruments to study explicit and implicit epistemological and didactic beliefs of middle level science teachers (in training and in practice). The objectives were: To describe and characterize (as part of the "ethnographic methodology" and using two inventories) some explicit epistemological beliefs of a science teacher of the middle level taken as a "case" and to compare them with the implicit ones, obtained during the same ethnographic study (using as an interpretative framework, the same substantive theory). The methodology used in the "subject-centered ethnographic research" (epistemological and didactic beliefs) is presented. The explicit epistemological beliefs of the "case teacher" were studied with the "Inventory of Didactic and Epistemological Beliefs (ICDE)", elaborated by the work team and with the "Inventory of Pedagogical and Scientific Beliefs (INPECTP)", developed by Porlán Ariza (1989). The responses to both Inventories were analyzed using the "substantive theory" used to develop the ICDE. Some explicit epistemological beliefs of the teacher were described and characterized. These were compared with implicit beliefs (inferred from other data sources and analyzed with the same theoretical framework).

The investigative methodological proposal implies the posing of conceptual theoretical problems whose solution stimulates the student to assume a real leading role as a true actor in the process of science in the practice of comparative anatomy, thus building his knowledge. This methodology leads the student to contrast his previous ideas with the new acquired knowledge, thus generating conflicts, which he overcomes when he manages to build new conceptions. On the other hand, the implementation of this methodology entails a greater commitment from the teacher, tending to a creative attitude and exchange. In this role, the teacher continually renews the proposed problem situations based on previous experiences, presents different theories and/or alternative hypotheses in which the problems to be investigated can be framed, generates and moderates discussions, evaluates a process and not only final results.