Education for sustainable development in chemistry – challenges, possibilities and pedagogical models in Finland and elsewhere

Juntunen, Marianne; Aksela, Maija

doi:10.1039/c4rp00128a

Cited by 47 publications

(41 citation statements)

References 84 publications

(174 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…The promotion of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) will be even more important in the future [1,2]. In particular, promoting the learning of sustainable energy is one of the central global contents of ESD at school levels.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In a meaningful teaching of sustainable energy, it would be important to take into consideration four strategic viewpoints: equality, flexibility, student orientability and creativity [5]. The themes about sustainable development such as sustainable energy should be dealt with holistically and in a student-oriented manner [2,5]. In particular, adolescents want to study natural science phenomena that they find interesting and socially essential, and they would like to deal with moral questions having to do with the phenomena.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Relevancy of the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) about Sustainable Energy for Adolescents

Aksela

Halonen

2016

Education Sciences

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Sustainable energy is one of the biggest global challenges today. This paper discusses how we can promote adolescents' learning of sustainable energy with the help of an international massive open online course (MOOC). The aim of this case study is to understand: (i) What do the adolescents find relevant in the MOOC course about sustainable energy? and (ii) What are the opportunities and challenges of the MOOC for the adolescents to learn sustainable energy? In our study, 80 voluntary adolescents around the world, who were at least 15 year old, took part in two surveys. The themes of our MOOC course were, e.g., sustainable growth, solar power, wind power, biofuel production and smart power generation. This 38 work-hour, free of charge, online course includes an introduction video, interviews of specialists, lecture videos, reading materials of the newest research and multiple choice questions on the topics. Research data was classified by using content analysis. The study indicates that adolescents feel that both the MOOC course and sustainable energy as a subject are relevant to them. Their decision to take part in an online course was mostly influenced by individual relevance and partly influenced by both societal and vocational relevance, according to the relevancy theory used. The MOOC was experienced to be relevant for the three following reasons: (i) good content (e.g., energy production) and implementation of the course; (ii) the course makes it possible to study in a new way; and (iii) the course is personally useful. The characteristics of the MOOC, such as being available anywhere and anytime, free access, and online learning, bringing out a flexible, new way of learning and thus promoting Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in the context of sustainable energy at school level around the world. This MOOC provided the school students with choice-based learning and expanded their learning opportunities in understanding sustainable energy. In the designing of MOOCs for studying sustainable energy, it is important to take the following things into consideration: (i) the balance between theory and practical examples; (ii) the support for interaction; and (iii) other support (e.g., technical and learning strategies) for students. Communication with other learners and getting feedback from teachers and tutors remain the vital challenges for the developers of MOOCs in the future.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Relevancy of the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) about Sustainable Energy for Adolescents

Aksela

Halonen

2016

Education Sciences

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Currently, learning chemistry requires a new paradigm known as green chemistry [10].Green chemistry is a contributor to sustainable development [11] refer to it as a sustainable chemistry. Something similar was stated by [12]that the chemical sciences play a role in education towards sustainable development.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Development of Integrated Analysis Practicum Module based on Green Chemistry

Auliah¹,

Mulyadi²,

Muharram³

2017

Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Education, Science, and Technology (ICEST 2017)

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract-This study aimed to develop a module practicum of chemistry analysis integrated-based on green chemistry to improve environmental the attitude of students which is valid and efficient. The four-step of the plump model adopted was used in the development of the module. These stages are the initial assessment phase, the planning stage, the stage of realisation/construction and implementation phase. The first three steps are used to develop and validate the module, while the last step is used to measure the effectiveness of the module. The module contains three main part, namely introduction, learning activity and bibliography. The introduction to the module containing a general explanation, the general objectives of learning, and the specific goals of learning. Learning activities section contains descriptions of learning contents, summaries, test, answer key, and feedback. A validation test was submitted to two green chemistry experts, two pedagogic experts, and one environment expert. The effectiveness of the module has been carried out by giving learning achievement test and observe environment attitude of a group of 25 students. The test of learning achievement cover attitude of the environment. Results of this study show that the module has a valid category with 3.2 scores. The average learning achievement and environment attitude of the students increase from score 6.45 to 18.29 of score total 22 and from 40.66 % to 65.97 %, respectively. Those are related to the effectiveness of the module.

show abstract

“…SSI has yielded positive experiences in teaching complex themes in chemistry (e.g., Hofstein & al. 2010), but SSI approaches must be very structured to compensate for the openness (Juntunen & Aksela 2014).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Contextual, relevant and practical chemistry teaching at upper secondary school level textbooks in Finland

Ikävalko

Aksela

2015

LUMAT

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Contextual teaching approaches can motivate students, make chemistry learning more relevant and affect the students' career choices later in life. This article presents the needs analysis section of a design research project. This needs analysis focused on the instructions for experimental tasks (N=160) found in Finnish upper secondary school textbooks and the STS (Science-Technology-Society) and everyday chemistry content in these instructions. It was found that the studied content can be divided into three levels: (II) context-based experiment instructions, (I) indirect contextual references and (0) no context. Over one third of the experiment instructions (37.5%) did not contain any context whatsoever. The content that did have a context mostly dealt with household chemistry related to everyday phenomena such as food and foodstuffs. The second most common themes in the instructions were: environment and nature and industry, technology and production. Most of the instructions were "recipe-like" and on the first level of Gilbert's context model. In terms of relevance, most of the studied instructions focused on the individual level. In the future, experiment instructions should be developed to be more relevant at school level.

show abstract

Education for sustainable development in chemistry – challenges, possibilities and pedagogical models in Finland and elsewhere

Cited by 47 publications

References 84 publications

Relevancy of the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) about Sustainable Energy for Adolescents

Relevancy of the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) about Sustainable Energy for Adolescents

Development of Integrated Analysis Practicum Module based on Green Chemistry

Contextual, relevant and practical chemistry teaching at upper secondary school level textbooks in Finland

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About