Abstract

OCCELLI, Maricel; GARCIA-ROMANO, Leticia  and  VALEIRAS, Nora. Biotechnology Education and its Socio-Scientific Controversies in Secondary School: A Study in the City of Córdoba (Argentina). Rev. Fac. Cienc. Tecnol. [online]. 2018, n.43, pp.31-46. ISSN 0121-3814.

In scientific-technological literacy, teaching biotechnology can mean an opportunity to promote responsible citizen participation. Our specific goals were to identify the content and strategies that teachers select for teaching biotechnology and to establish the way in which the controversial biotechnological issues are addressed. To that end, we worked with biology teachers from 21 high schools through a semi structured questionnaire and interviewed eight teachers in order to perform a more in-depth analysis. Based on these results, we found that teachers use the science, technology, society and environment approach, select contents linked to genetic engineering and maintain expository practices, as well as practices closer to the techno-scientific nature of biote-chnological knowledge. For controversial biotechnological issues, teachers propose group work, guided discussions, article analysis and search for information on the Internet. We believe that the characteristics of biotechnology education encourage us to think about teacher training opportunities that consider specific strategies for teaching biotechnology and its socio-scientific controversies.

Keywords : Biotechnology; socio-scientific controversies; teaching strategies.

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