Inquiry through Industrial Chemistry in Compulsory Secondary Education for the Achievement of the Development of the 21st Century Skills

María Diez-Ojeda,Noelia Velasco-Pérez,Miguel Ángel Queiruga-Dios,José Benito Vázquez-Dorrío,Emilia López-Iñesta

doi:10.3390/educsci11090475

María Diez-Ojeda, Noelia Velasco-Pérez + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci11090475

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Abstract

At a key moment when education systems are moving towards the development of 21st-century skills at school, we propose to develop them with a series of enquiry activities connected to the real world on the subject of Chemistry in Compulsory Secondary Education. The four selected topics have practical aspects, as they are related to industrial chemistry, and are proposed in educational practice using the 5E model. The results obtained in a pilot test with 22 students show that the context created facilitates the development of 21st century competences. It is understood that this novel proposal can be successfully employed in other contexts.

Highlights

Chemistry encompasses multiple branches of knowledge and crosses the barriers of the micro and macroscopic world, spreading throughout the universe
The assessment items have focused on nine aspects that are listed in Table 1 and are related to the competences whose development is being favored in the students with the definition of the core skills of Appendix A
It can be seen that some of the skills of the 21st century are more favored with the outcomes designed in this approach of incorporation of the inquiry around industrial chemistry

Summary

Introduction

Chemistry encompasses multiple branches of knowledge and crosses the barriers of the micro and macroscopic world, spreading throughout the universe. It is difficult to be aware of the main role of Chemistry in the world around us; we are surrounded by a complex and ordered system of chemical reactions, present in living organisms and in the rest of matter and phenomena occurring around us [1]. Chemistry was introduced as a high school curricular subject in 1866 in the Netherlands. The Netherlands, with its traditional commercial character, identified the need to create an “expert” to analyze such industrial products, with the objective that secondary school students were instructed in this matter, making profits from the trade of these products, and creating a scientific knowledge that would favor the development of the country [2]

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