A Framework for Teaching STEM in Nanoscience and Technology Context in Primary and Secondary Education
摘要
As nanoproducts have become ubiquitous in peoples’ everyday life, it becomes imperative to empower individuals with a comprehensive grasp of the fundamentals of nanoscience and technology. Science education has always faced the challenge of keeping pace with technological development. This requires and requests teachers’ and educators’ curiosity and motivation to reform their teaching. Nanoscience can be considered as an integrated specific branch of knowledge, learning, and application—a composite that educators must themselves master to effectively guide their students in seeking, comprehending and critically evaluating information within real-world contexts. While numerous universities have effectively incorporated nanoscience into their tertiary-level curricula, the challenge persists within primary and secondary education. At these levels, the curricula often overlook nanoscience entirely. We provide an opportunity to plan the training and empowerment of teachers at primary and secondary levels of education, which is a prerequisite for curricular change. Based on the literature review, standalone nano programs are suitable for higher levels of education, e.g., university level, where students are already mature enough for in-depth analysis of nano content. This chapter rationalizes studying five specific concepts of nanoscience and technology (NST) aligned with the “Big Ideas” of NST: (1) size and scale, (2) structure of matter, (3) forces and interactions, (4) quantum effects, and (5) self-assembly, together with three more generic concepts. Overall, the chapter provides a framework for teaching NST in schools, serving practical examples of learning activities that are useful to learn at primary and higher levels of education. At the primary level, we recommend fostering inquiry-based learning of NST phenomena through hands-on experiments on tangible products. As the students progress to higher grades, NST serves as more than just a context for conceptual understanding; it becomes a platform for learning scientific methodologies, modeling, the nature of science, and the intersection of science with society. The chapter benefits educators/teachers, scientists, researchers, and curriculum developers who are aware of the importance of nanoscience and modern technology as a part of science literacy.