AN INTERDISCIPLINARY MODEL FOR TEACHING THE TOPIC “FOODS”: A CONTRIBUTION TO MODERN CHEMICAL EDUCATION

Abstract

Modern chemical education aims at teaching based on critical thinking, problem solving and decision-making that may be developed through an interdisciplinary approach. An interdisciplinary model for teaching the topic “foods” is suggested. The goal of the suggested approach is for students to develop their evaluative thinking in order to adopt a responsible behaviour towards health. The proposed model consists of four main steps: i) programming/planning of the teaching strategy; ii) orientation/participation of the students in the procedure; iii) treatment of the subject and presentation of the work produced; and iv) evaluation (group and self-evaluation) of the work. The application of our project confirms that the main objective of our model, that is the promotion of HOCS learning, has been achieved since the students learned to distinguish and to decide about choosing foods which are not harmful for their health, to evaluate advertisements about foods and to distinguish/decide about the misleading ones, to express their ideas on health aspects and critically discuss them, to compare various dietary products and to evaluate them. Our project’s pedagogic value is reflected on the fact that during its application students participating in the teamwork developed skills and behavioral attitudes such as cooperation, communication, involvement, adjustability, action, mutual support and acceptance of the individuality of each member of the team that will be important for them as citizens. [Chem. Educ. Res. Pract.: 2004, 5, 143-155]