A VERTICAL SPIRAL CURRICULUM TO PROMOTE SCIENCE EDUCATION IN THE AGE OF THE ANTHROPOCENE: NEW CHALLENGES FOR TEACHER TRAINING

In this era of ecological transition, responding to the challenges posed by the Anthropocene requires collective and coordinated efforts from researchers and experts across academic and professional communities. However, it also requires ordinary citizens to think and act responsibly when making decisions on complex and controversial socio-scientific issues, such as climate change and biodiversity loss. Against this backdrop, the task of schools is to cultivate in individuals the ability to engage with any form of scientific communication that aims to raise environmental awareness and expose misinformation, equipping them to make rational decisions in situations of uncertainty. In this article, we aim to address this highly topical matter by examining two related issues. The first concerns the need to reconsider the relationship between the curriculum and knowledge in light of curriculum overload due to constant societal demands, including those relating to environmental literacy. The second issue concerns which curriculum model is best suited to promoting the relevant types of learning and the training needs of teachers in this regard. The work is divided into three sections. The first section provides a reflection on the nature of scientific knowledge to address a crucial question for teachers today: “How to avoid creating a ‘mile wide – inch deep’ curriculum?” [4]. The second section, based on valuable insights from the PISA conception of science education, seeks to clarify how teaching science as a practice could be an appropriate solution in both epistemological and pedagogical terms. The third section draws on Stenhouse [5] and Bruner [6] to propose a vertical spiral curriculum based on principles of procedures to help teachers at various school levels to design learning activities consistent with a conception of science as a practice.