Kemiinnehåll i undervisningen för nybörjare. En studie av hur ämnesinnehållet får konkurrera med målet att få eleverna intresserade av naturvetenskap

Sammendrag

This study describes the dilemma of making science interesting on the one hand, and to introduce students into a scientific teaching practise on the other in a laboratory based teaching practise. The study was conducted in a grade four class in Swedish compulsory school by video- and tape-recorded classroom observations. The recordings and copies of students’ writing and drawing were analysed by using a two-fold strategy. Firstly, the constituted content was analysed by focusing the classroom communication, the tools used and the teacher’s guiding. Secondly, the various laboratory experiments where analysed in order to identify the potential chemistry content. The result indicates that the constituted chemistry content is reduced and sometimes wrong in relation to the potential content. This can be explained by a teaching tradition that focuses on the importance of making science interesting and fun. However, striving for this may create a learning-situation where students do not learn how to use tools to make relevant hypotheses and observations. What can be regarded as irrelevant hypotheses and observations is not questioned. Further, right or wrong results in the scientific practise are not dealt with neither in the self-produced texts nor in the classroom discussions. One main conclusion is that students enjoy the lessons but the introduction into the scientific practise is not facilitated.