La incorporación de la teoría de la evolución biológica a la educación primariaposibilidades y obstáculos

Abstract

In Spain, the theory of evolution is addressed at the end of compulsory education. Such a late treatment produces numerous learning difficulties to students and prevents them from achieving a proper understanding of this content, as complex as crucial to take informed decisions. This research is aimed to explore the possibilities and obstacles of introducing evolution into Spanish primary education. The literature review, the analysis of the Spanish curriculum (at state and autonomous level) in comparison to other countries and states, the interview with specialists and the discussion group with primary and secondary teachers have made it possible to identify the nuclear ideas necessary to gradually and progressively construct this family of models: biodiversity, variation, natural selection, adaptation, inheritance, common ancestors and change. Likewise, the design and application of a sequence of activities on the diversity of the human skin has shown the great capacity of primary school students to operate with these nuclear ideas at different levels of scale (cell, organism, population). These results confirm the possibility of incorporating the theory of evolution to the Spanish primary education, providing that an active methodological approach based on the use of scientific practices is adopted.