Evaluating Ocean Literacy of Elementary School Students: Preliminary Results of a Cross-Cultural Study in the Mediterranean Region

A good understanding of the role and function of the ocean seems to be of paramount importance in recent years, constituting the basic tool for the promotion of healthy and sustainable marine environment, and a target area of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. In this study, the content knowledge of elementary school students (grades 3–6) in regards to ocean sciences issues was examined. A structured questionnaire was administered to 1004 students participating in a cross-cultural study from three Mediterranean countries (Italy, Croatia, and Greece). The results of the study indicated a rather moderate level of knowledge in the total sample, while slight differences were recorded among the three countries revealing common knowledge gains and misconceptions. Rasch analysis was applied to further evaluate the validity of the results, while the influence of certain demographics on students' knowledge level was also investigated. This study concludes with a discussion of the implications on national curriculum development in elementary education level, in order to promote ocean literacy and to ensure protection and conservation of the Mediterranean Sea

Mediterranean Sea Literacy: When Ocean Literacy becomes region-specific

Ocean Literacy (OL) has been defined as an understanding of the ocean’s influence on people and their influence on the ocean. The OL movement was born in the US and its framework consisted of seven essential principles and 45 fundamental concepts; it is now largely accepted worldwide for use in both formal (schools and universities) and non-formal (research institutes, aquaria, museums, etc.) education settings. Based on this framework, marine scientists and educators developed the “Mediterranean Sea Literacy” (MSL) guide adapted to the specificities of the Mediterranean region, presented here. The MSL principles (7) and concepts (43), serving as guidance for research, education, informed decision-making, and improved citizens’ lifestyles, aim to contribute to environmental protection, conservation, and restoration of the Mediterranean Sea as well as to help to achieve a blue innovative and sustainable economy

Development and validation of a framework for the assessment of school curricula on the presence of evolutionary concepts (FACE)

Evolution is a key concept of biology, fundamental to understand the world and address important societal problems, but research studies show that it is still not widely understood and accepted. Several factors are known to influence evolution acceptance and understanding, but little information is available regarding the impacts of the curriculum on these aspects. Very few curricula have been examined to assess the coverage of biological evolution. The available studies do not allow comparative analyses, due to the different methodologies employed by the authors. However, such an analysis would be useful for research purposes and for the development of appropriate educational policies to address the problem of a lack of evolution acceptance in some countries. In this paper we describe the steps through which we developed a valid and reliable instrument for curricula analysis known as FACE: “Framework to Assess the Coverage of biological Evolution by school curricula.” This framework was developed based on the “Understanding Evolution Conceptual Framework” (UECF). After an initial pilot study, our framework was reformulated based on identified issues and experts’ opinions. To generate validity and reliability evidence in support of the framework, it was applied to four European countries’ curricula. For each country, a team of a minimum of two national and two foreign coders worked independently to assess the curriculum using this framework for content analysis. Reliability evidence was estimated using Krippendorf's alpha and resulted in appropriate values for coding the examined curricula. Some issues that coders faced during the analysis were discussed and, to ensure better reliability for future researchers, additional guidelines and one extra category were included in the framework. The final version of the framework includes six categories and 34 subcategories. FACE is a useful tool for the analysis and the comparison of curricula and school textbooks regarding the coverage of evolution, and such results can guide curricula development.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Correction to: Development and validation of a framework for the assessment of school curricula on the presence of evolutionary concepts (FACE)

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EuroScitizen Working Group 2 I Identifying needs and opportunities to improve the contribution of formal education to public literacy on evolution

EuroScitizen is a COST Action and involves a research network whose aim is to identify strategies to raise levels of scientific literacy about evolution in Europe. EuroScitizen comprises five working groups (WG) and this poster summarizes the current achievements of WG2 on formal education. WG2 aims to identify the needs and opportunities to improve the teaching of evolution since the first school years in distinct countries and enhance the contribution of formal education to European public scientific literacy on this important topic. To achieve these objectives we are studying: i) the school curricula and ii) textbooks of the participating countries; iii) teachers’ content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, attitudes and beliefs about teaching evolution and effective methodologies and strategies to empower teachers about evolution education; and iv) strategies to promote evolution understanding in elementary school students. This poster presents some of the current achievements of WG2, such as: i) publication of a paper about the development and validation of a framework for the assessment of school curricula on the presence of evolutionary concepts (FACE); ii) comparison of the content of most adopted textbooks in the schools of 8 countries, from the 1st to the 9th grade, about the presence of evolution Big Ideas; iii) identification of teachers’ best practices in evolution education and teacher’ training actions about evolution education; and iv) the publication of a study about the evolutionary concepts that elementary school students most often used after a pedagogical intervention. The next steps of the WG2 are also presented.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

A telerehabilitation platform for cognitive, physical and behavioural rehabilitation in elderly patients affected by dementia

Dementia is one of the main causes of disability in elderly people and its treatment becomes, year after year, an increasingly compelling priority for the public health system. In the last years, home assistance and telemedicine have paved the way to decrease the treatments’ costs and to improve the patients and caregivers quality of life quality. In this framework, the aim of ABILITY project is to design, develop and validate an integrated platform of services aimed at supporting and enhancing the rehabilitation process for patients with dementia at their homes. ABILITY platform allows the clinician to assign rehabilitation plans with a strong compliance monitoring, enabled by the technological solutions integrated, and the holistic approach to rehabilitation, as the plan includes physical, cognitive and behavioral therapies/exercises. The ABILITY platform will be assessed through a set of validation activities, involving a small group of pilot patients, and a Randomized Control Trial. In conclusion, the ABILITY project generates a series of assistive services inside a modular and flexible platform, adaptable to the single patient and his/her needs, increasing the treatment efficiency and efficacy with respect to the state of the art

EIROForum e la comunicazione delle scienze nella scuola: opportunità e aspetti critici

[English abstract] This study focuses on science education activities realized by European intergovernmental research organizations (EIROForum) with the aim of reconstructing their history and providing a picture of present situation and possible developments. Starting from her own experience as a science teacher involved in European projects, the candidate carried out a survey making use of different sources, possibly “first hand” ones, like documents collected during science festivals, publications, information available on the Internet (official sites) and direct contact with some protagonists of the studied events. Finally the candidate suggests a method for assessing and evaluating the outcome of the studied activities by means of data mining, that is exploiting data and information from the public domain as those provided by national and international student surveys periodically carried out in Europe. [Italian abstract] Questo lavoro prende in esame le attività per l’educazione scientifica realizzate dalle organizzazioni di ricerca intergovernative europee (EIROForum) con lo scopo di ricostruire la loro storia e fornire un quadro del loro stato attuale e dei loro possibili sviluppi. Partendo dalle proprie esperienze come insegnante di discipline scientifiche impegnata in progetti europei, la candidata ha effettuato una ricerca utilizzando diverse fonti, possibilmente “di prima mano”, come documentazione raccolta durante festival scientifici, pubblicazioni a stampa, informazioni disponibili sulla rete (siti istituzionali) e contatti diretti con alcuni protagonisti delle vicende ricostruite. La candidata, infine, propone un metodo di verifica e valutazione delle attività esaminate per mezzo del data mining, utilizzando cioè dati e informazioni di dominio pubblico, come quelli prodotti dalle indagini nazionali ed internazionali che vengono effettuate regolarmente sugli studenti europei

How to Increase Ocean Literacy for Future Ocean Sustainability? The Influence of Non-Formal Marine Science Education

Even though the ocean is a defining feature on Earth that regulates climate and provides oxygen, food, and jobs, students still have low to moderate marine and ocean literacy knowledge. Ocean literacy is an understanding of the ocean’s influence on people and people’s influence on the ocean. It is an emerging need necessary for ensuring the sustainability of the ocean and its resources. The UN has declared a Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development, and one of the priority research and development areas is ocean literacy. Unfortunately, marine science and ocean literacy topics are poorly represented in school curricula across the world. This study presents the level of marine knowledge in a sample of primary school students before and after different themed non-formal educational interventions and the effect of non-formal educational activities on students’ knowledge. These activities led to significant increase in the knowledge level three weeks after they were performed, indicating the retention of gained information. Performed educational activities and knowledge transfer from graduate level to primary school level significantly increased the level of students’ knowledge, and consequently ocean literacy, and revealed some of the learning misconceptions. Results of this study show that there is a need for an integrated approach to the teaching of Ocean Literacy starting from the early grades by combining teacher’s professional development, strengthening ocean-related topics in school curricula, and promoting non-formal educational activities

Teaching Earth Sciences in Italian liceo high schools following the 2010 reform: a survey

Following the recent upper secondary school reform (2010) in almost every Italian liceo high school there is a Natural Sciences curriculum (including Earth Sciences, Biology and Chemistry) spread over five years. The Ministry of Education issued guidelines without chronological separation between the three different subjects. Given the novelty of the context, we decided to investigate how teachers are implementing the new Earth Sciences curriculum through the five teaching years by means of a survey. This has been administered as an anonymous on-line questionnaire between January and March 2014. The sample was chosen by randomisation from the population of science teachers working in Italian public liceo high school. Sample schools have been stratified according to geographical location and density of schools, 120 questionnaires from 76 schools (4.5% of the school population) have been collected. The sample shows that the compliance with Ministry guidelines on the prescribed topics is highest in the 1st biennium, lower in the 2nd biennium (> 90% vs 72 -77% - according to the topics) and very low in the 5° year (73, 17 and 20% - according to the topics), in which teachers' choices appear heterogeneous. The topics deemed indispensable by the sample were the ones already present in curricula before the reform. Teaching organization seems affected by the limited weekly teaching time, and practical activities such as laboratory and fieldwork appear extremely reduced. Regarding chosen textbooks, sample teachers generally indicate a few specific authors, while others are seldom chosen. When asked about their knowledge of Earth Sciences, teachers expressed an overall positive self-perception, accompanied by interest for in-service training offer, preferably in mixed format (in attendance and on-line). This survey suggests that, due to the lack of guidance, the new curricula are being implemented autonomously by teachers, substantially grounding upon old curricula. The heterogeneous choices for the final year could be affected by uncertainty about the first post-reform state exam. The study also indicates the need to start or enhance in-service teacher training. Novel strategies for implementing the new curricula are an opportunity to overcome old teaching practices largely based on a theoretical approach

Learning of Geological time in a sample of 9th grade Italian Liceo students

Geological time is a pivotal concept in Earth sciences and many studies deal with it, but only few are interventional and none is known in Italy. We performed a study on the learning of geological time through a randomized controlled trial among 298 ninth grade liceo students of Friuli Venezia Giulia (Italy), including a pre-test, a short lecture, a post-test and a delayed test. Sample classes were randomly allocated to the experimental group (constructivist-style teaching) or to the control group (cognitivist-style teaching). Test scores displayed a significant improvement after the teaching and in the delayed test in both groups. Among students obtaining equal or better scores in the post-test, experimental group performed significantly better than control group. Science teachers of the same sample were also involved in the study. Few of them were familiar with misconceptions and taught geologic time, all showed a mix of post-cognitivist, cognitivist and behaviourist teaching approaches