Empowering us of the meanings about the energy concept, in non formal educational environments

• Main Authors: Carlos S. Buitrago, Ma. Maite Andrés
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul 2014-12-01
• Series: Investigações em Ensino de Ciências
• Subjects: Non-formal education; critical meaningful learning; demonstrative experiences; energy
• Online Access: http://www.if.ufrgs.br/ienci/artigos/Artigo_ID444/v19_n3_a2014.pdf
• ISSN: 1518-8795; 1518-8795

Citizens are users of consensual scientific knowledge and technology; but we also have the right and duty to engage with social responsibility in the techno-scientific world. The energy-related knowledge has remained as a relevant academic content for its significance to society, science and technology. In many countries, there are literacy campaigns on the subject, but is it enough this? Science education (formal and informal) should allow us to understand the personal and social circumstances in which we live, to empower knowledge of science; this implies achieving conceptual development and act, which requires interacting with contextualized learning environments in critical action. From the experimental activity we wonder if the demonstrative experiences in no formal settings organized with critical nodes of significance on the subject of energy will promote the empowerment of scientific ideas. The study begins with an exploration of ideas on the subject built by a heterogeneous group; with which we established critical points of significance and to design a route of demonstrative experiences potentially meaningful and critiques.