Teacher experiences, views and proposals: first results from a questionnaire developed in the frame of ENVRIPLUS project

We present preliminary results from the analysis of a questionnaire addressed to teachers. This action is undertaken for the developing of Task 15.5, aimed at providing secondary school teachers and students with an e-Training Platform, based on scientific themes related to Research Infrastructures for the Environmental Sector participating to ENVRIplus project. The main actions are aimed to design, structure, develop and execute a Training course for teachers to the use of the multimedia platform.

Science teaching plays an important role in keep in contact Science and School, and Society in general. So teaching effort is required to focalize students' attention towards scientific contents. Teaching method is usually a healthy mix of all of techniques such as question-answer, problem definition/exercise, guided independent learning, ex cathedra, cooperative learning, video learning clip, learning by doing with hands-on activities by the use of science related technologies such as mobile applications and internet, as well as various available "classic" tools such as handbook and scientific laboratories. To build environmental knowledge together with teachers, students have to be involved in classroom, and the WEB is perfect to this purpose. Since several research international institutions already offer Web-based services and materials to support school activities, our effort is the design of a user-friendly website, in line with the targets we have, up to data to which European science teachers are looking for, offering a wide range of teaching 'modules' and stimuli for students, implementing scientific key competences at school.

We prepared a questionnaire to improve and better fit the content of the e-Training Platform. The questionnaire is addressed to teachers in order to catch their needs and help in feeding the platform with targeted contents. The first part of the questionnaire focuses on objective information about the formal, quantitative and qualitative position of science class in schools, and the content and methods of teaching in different countries. The second part of the questionnaire investigates personal teacher experiences and their views on what can improve training offer about environmental science lessons and courses. The third part investigates on tools teachers have and use and on what they would have. Questionnaires were collected based on the GITF international network and in the occasion of training events for Italian teachers.