Earth sciences, an “out of system” science: epistemology, models and skills

Abstract

With regard to a long experience in teaching and spreading Earth sciences in the Italian context, both to students and to the general public, the work proposes a brief analysis of the relationship between Earth Sciences and the lack of interest towards this discipline in all the public. From this analysis emerged that Earth sciences appear as an “out of system” discipline, particular definition used and illustrated in the text. As a result, it seemed to be necessary to deepen some aspects of its epistemology and of the methodological and experimental procedures that the different branches of the discipline require. More precisely, it has emerged the peculiarity of a science that questions the application of the experimental scientific method, highlighting the need to identify different models and tools in experimental and investigative practice. The relationships between facts, phenomena and events require, and in the same time they can promote e, among students but also researchers, specific and transversal and skills and abilities, including the capacities of analysis, synthesis and abstraction that are fundamental both as soft skills and in the world of research.