(551)EDUCATION FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT: CONTRIBUTIONS TO A SCIENCE CURRICULUM FOR PRIMARY EDUCATION

摘要

The Declaration of the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development gives an important role toeducation in helping solve the situation of planetary emergency that humanity faces. In Education forSustainable Development (ESD), Scientific Literacy (SL)was established as one of the contributionsthat stimulates the understanding of current issues and problems, so that responsible decisions,although justified in the present time, will not undermine the future. Therefore, education in scienceshould also be directed towards the promotion of SL since early school years. It is not easy to definewhat a scientific literate is. It is also difficult to say how the formal teaching and learning of science inthe first school years can help develop skills that will allow justified actions without compromising thefuture, in a democratic society characterized by the prevalence of scientific and technologicaldevelopments occurring in a vertiginous pace, with implications for personal life, society and even theplanet.Despite its diversity, the design of programme (as a part of curriculum)proposed to promote SLincludes the intention to develop and disseminate the practical teaching and learning of science,ground-breaking and suitable for contemporary demands. These programmes share some questionsthat can be systematized as follows: i)learn what? ii)how? iii)what are the challenges to teachers?Considering this issue we state a view of SL set out in a programme design framed by the principles ofESD and the guidelines Science / Technology / Society (STS). The programme contains theoreticalreference elements organized into four distinct levels: dimensions, components, parameters andindicators. They are organized from broader and more general (dimensions)to narrower and morespecific levels (indicators). In each dimension there are different components that allow itscharacterization. Each component is clarified through its development into several parameters and thelatter are specified through the definition of several indicators.We selected three dimensions: ESD, SL, and STS. The selection of these dimensions resulted from: i)recognizing the importance of directing the teaching and learning process towards an ESDperspective from early school years; ii)the importance attached to SL in achieving that purpose; iii)theconviction that STS orientation programmes can shape of a more adequate vision of science andscientific activity, as well as an involvement based in the discussion of scientific and technologicalproblems with critical thinking, sense of responsibility and solidarity. We chose to establish a hierarchyfor these dimensions: ESD being the most comprehensive (our primary goal), followed by SL (as ameans to achieve our goal)and finally STS. We defined three components for the ESD dimension:environmental, social and economic issues; for the SL dimension we also established threecomponents: scientific knowledge, skills and attitudes, and for STS we established two components:guidelines for science teaching in contexts and the implications of the interconnections betweenscience and technology in society and vice-versa. In each component there are several parametersand the indicators defined for each parameter are as objective as possible. All distinct levels(dimensions, components, parameters and indicators)will be presented in tables and justified.