The Design of an Innovative Scientific Interdisciplinary Lab for Pre-Service Primary Teachers

Teaching science is a crucial issue in early childhood and primary school, as it greatly influences the future attitude of pupils (and, thus, of future citizens) towards scientific knowledge. However, an effective training in teaching science cannot rely solely on isolated, well-curated courses. In this paper, we describe a widescale proposal of innovation for the academic scientific curriculum of pre-service pre-primary and primary teachers. Our aim is to improve scientific knowledge of students, as well as their related teaching skills. The major foci of our proposal are: (i) making a “scientific environment” available, i.e. a term fully devoted to science during the five years of the academic curriculum; (ii) planning interdisciplinary lab classes connected to a central topic of keynote importance (which was chosen to be water); (iii) allowing students to actively work on the topic through hands-on activities. The combination of these factors is expected to circumvent many flaws in the traditional academic teaching of science, which are exaggerated in the context of the education of pre-service teachers, who actually did not select a scientific course for their academic career. In a nutshell, a stimulating scientific context and more engaging, cutting-edge classes will hopefully turn motivated students into effective teachers of tomorrow.