La educación científica: los experimentos de Van Helmont y Priestley

Abstract

Scientific knowledge and skills acquired by students during pre-university education has diminished since legislative changes were introduced in Spain during the 1990's. As a result, education in the field of science is suffering. Some initiatives are currently underway in Great Britain and the United States to improve pre-university education in the sciences. This paper discusses these methods and proposes possible adaptations for the Spanish system. Information technology (IT) presents educators and teachers with innovative teaching tools, which are very well-received by students/ to which students are already accustomed, and can be used to complement other basic methods such as laboratory and field work. The Plant Physiology Area of the Earth and Environmental Sciences Department of the University of Alicante is developing projects based on the use of IT as a teaching tool in science education. This article presents two interactive animations based on the historical experiments designed by van Helmont and Priestley in order to motivate students and to teach them some of the concepts of plant nutrition and the relationship between photosynthesis and respiration, respectively.