Search results

This article presents the reflexive analysis of a strategy of science teaching through the inquiry-based science education, of curricular articulation between pre-school education and the primary school education, within the framework of in-service training of teachers. The main objectives of this training course titled “The science experiment and the playful learning”, were: to develop procedural skills to implement playfulness activities oriented to the action and participation of the students with intentionality to learn science; to develop knowledge and procedural skills in the experimental problem solving in science; and to operationalize practical activities that promote a smooth transition of the students between the different educational cycles. The subjects that have been developed in this study are included in the curriculum of the kindergarten and the primary school, which involved interdisciplinary aspects between science, mathematics, arts and portuguese, as light and colour, primary and secondary colours, volumes and capacities measurements and colour saturation. It was applied scientific vocabulary, predicting, experimental procedures, and analysis of the results. In addition, the friendship, the sharing, the trust and the respect were also explored. The project was evaluated through the analysis of content of field notes, observation grids and the satisfaction evaluation in the final of the activities, as well as the reflexive analysis of the educators and teachers involved.

Physical education in schools aims to promote physical activity, socialisation, and interaction among students. Today, it is considered a very important subject for development and health. It encompasses several sports modalities, always with the purpose of promoting physical activity and motor development of those who practice. Orienteering is one of the modalities that has recently gained fame. Orienteering is a sport modality that integrates physical, cognitive, and emotional dimensions. It consists, as the name implies, of navigating to a certain area, using a map and a compass, aiming for the shortest possible route between several points marked on a map. The work described in this paper presents a case of the introduction of new digital technologies in this modality to simplify the administration of these events in a school environment and to promote interest in the practice of this sport modality. The web application that allows the creation and addition of the orienteering event, the visualisation of detailed information in an after-event context, and the registration and management of new organisers or orienteers will be presented throughout the paper. It also presents the mobile application that allows the organisers to start and finish events, manage orienteers of a given event, view the current position of orienteers, and view the results of past events. The mobile application presents a static orienteering map to the orienteer. The visit of the orienteer to each control point (assigned on the orienteering map by the organisers) is verified using the georeferencing features of the device. These tools facilitate the management of these events by organisers as well as their analyses through automatically generated information. It also makes the practice of this modality more appealing to students because it introduces a type of gamification. Moreover, it also benefits from being paperless because it makes it unnecessary to print maps for the execution of an event and because the administration of an event can be done without the need to mark the control points in the terrain.