ENHANCING EPISTEMIC LEARNING IN ELEMENTARY SCIENCE THROUGH A BLACK BOX GAME

A key component of scientific literacy, the perennial objective of science education for a sustainable world increasingly permeated by science and technology, is epistemic knowledge, that is, the innovative meta-cognitive knowledge on how science and technology work and how scientists think and act to validate scientific knowledge. Teaching and learning epistemic knowledge is difficult due to its meta-cognitive feature, and especially for primary teachers and students; the cooperative serious games may have a role on overcome the difficulties and thus have been selected as the didactic tool for teaching epistemic knowledge in the elementary school. Games offer an authentic analogy of the scientific practice because they replicate science epistemological tenets and its cooperative and competitive aspects that authentically simulate the cooperation and competition among scientists (as sociology of science has put forward) and are flexible enough to allow evolutionary adaptation to students. This paper aims to innovate the training of science primary teachers through their involvement in developing teaching materials with the format of the black box game project to teach elementary students some epistemic contents. A real experience to teach students science research skills such as evidence-based observing, thinking, arguing and concluding on knowledge validation through a black box game project is presented. The methodological design and some preliminary products of student learning account for the specific experience developed on a school, as the work is still in progress. Finally, some preliminary conclusions for the continuity of the teacher training experience are discussed.