The Role of Interdisciplinary PBL Activities: Climate of the Past

Nowadays, in Portugal, the challenge of Natural Sciences (NS) for middle and high school teachers is to make science education more attractive to young students. One way to achieve that is through practical work. Unfortunately, this kind of work is not very common in geology teaching. 

The Curricular Autonomy and Flexibility Project (DACP) with Biology/Geology, Mathematics and Physical/Chemistry was intended to increase the quality of teaching and learning, based on the Students Profile at Completion of Compulsory Education reference document and the guiding documents for Essential Learnings, which will provide help in the planning and assessment of teaching and learning.

This work is an example carried out through the interaction of different learning environments, inside the classroom, and outdoors, and of different types of practical work, namely laboratory and fieldwork.  The organisation of the activities followed a pattern: the field trip to the Valongo Anticline (North of Portugal) and Problem-Based Learning (PBL).

The Valongo Anticline allows  the observation of evolution of life during the Paleozoic, based on animal and plant fossils, as well as the possibility of dating the strata from the fossils they contain. It also presents some particular lithology evidence, namely the presence of icebergs, the existence of submarine volcanism, and the presence of beaches. The tectonic action is evidenced by the existence of folds and faults.

The Problem Question (PQ) was based on an outcrop from the Paleozoic where we have the geo-trails that cover rocks of different ages of the region of Valongo. In this site it is possible to observe the variation in sedimentation environments (marine and continental) from nearly 540 to 300 M.y. Also, in this region we can find several outcrops with diamictites beds.  This   glaciomarine record of the Hirnantian (end-Ordovician) glaciation is evidence of the climate changes that occurred over Earth's history.  

In this poster we discuss some ideas about what students learn from different activities and which other factors influence their learning process as students. The idea of interdisciplinary learning is to allow students to realize that certain fundamental concepts don’t belong to a single science subject. On the contrary, these concepts can be applied in many subjects.

In conclusion, this poster presents some formal and non-formal educational practical activities that the students developed, in groups, during the year 2023 and 2024 and that can be used in the teaching of geology.