A Proposal to Enrich Teachers' Perception of the State of the World: First results

Abstract

The 'state of the world' has become an object of growing concern during recent decades. For this reason educators have been asked to contribute to public awareness and understanding of the problems and challenges related to our planet's future, in order to make possible citizens' participation in well-grounded decision-making. In spite of these appeals, attention paid by science teachers and science education researchers to the present state and future of the world is still very slight and constitutes a serious missing dimension in science teachers' education. In this article we describe a workshop conceived to favour a better teacher perception of global problems and possible remedies, as well as the promotion of more favourable attitudes towards the incorporation of these issues in the curriculum. Results of the implementation of this workshop are presented.