Materials? Density in Floating / Sinking phenomena: experimental procedures and modelling

Kariotoglou, P., Spyrtou, A., Zoupidis, A., Arvanitakis, I., Blouchou, S., Fakazi, E., Kaskalis, T., Malandrakis, G., Pnevmatikos, D., Polatidou, T., Soultanis, K., Triantafyllidou, R.
University of Western Macedonia, Greece, pkariotog@uowm.gr

This research is a part of a project designed to promote children?s interest in Science, as well as in scientific careers in the specific domain of Materials Science (materials around us in everyday applications and their properties). In our research we designed and developed a module for studying the density of materials found easily in the environment (e.g., a piece of wood, glass, plastic, etc.), as well as hi-tech materials (e.g., fiber glass, fiber carbon, Polyvinyl chloride, etc.). The module is enhanced with Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), that is, multimedia and simulation environments, visual models plus real experiments. It has been implemented in the 5th class of Primary School (10 ?11 year old pupils). In this poster, we present the process of design and refinement of a module concerning the concept of density applied in floating/sinking phenomena. Specifically, we present characteristics of the teaching approach employed to promote student inquiry on this topic. In addition, we describe the main features of this module concerning the teaching-learning environment such as interlacing guided discovery with inquiry learning for approaching science and technological knowledge.