Tell the science: Training strategies

Abstract

The reflection that we present starts from a series of considerations, made in recent years, in the face of the growing difficulties that adolescents encounter in the study of mathematics and natural sciences. Our proposal is in a design path capable of arousing interest and curiosity, based on elements of the history of science, which do not exclude the very life of scientists. The starting hypothesis is that scientific study cannot be reduced to solving problems, to a constant and uninterrupted exercise book on disciplinary topics. In this way, in fact, and with the usual, consolidated methods, while recognizing the importance of how it is resolved, we risk the drying up of knowledge, as we do not question why. The historicization of science, on the other hand, helps to trace its roots and, when it uses the explanatory power of narration, it ignites the desire to know. In fact, storytelling is inher-ent to our being, it characterizes our human identity that wants to learn. The empirical fallout of this analysis is present in other essays that preceded this article. Here, above all, we want to draw the strings of an intellectual under-standing and the educational consequences of a problem of urgent relevance today. The methodological approach with which both the analysis and the educational proposal are set is qualitative, consistent with the epistemological background, which has a hermeneutic framework.