HOW TO DEVELOP SCIENTIFIC THINKING IN PRIMARY STUDENTS BY INVESTIGATIVE ENVIRONMENT

The objectives of the ONU Agenda 2030 (designed to accompany schools in the ecological and cultural transition) and the actions outlined in 2020 in the European agenda for skills underline the importance of bringing students closer to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) subjects, and consequently promote scientific education. According to a socio-constructivist perspective, we can understand how students develop scientific thinking by observing their relationship with the social, cultural and environmental situations they experience (Fleer, 2021). Among innovative teaching strategies, the "inquiry-based learning" approach can represent a methodology suitable for stimulating the development of scientific thinking in children, as it places inquiry at the center of the learning process (Worth & Grollman; 2003; Belland, 2017). In this work, we will present some preliminary data from a case study that aims to experiment with innovative pedagogical models to stimulate the interest of children in primary school in scientific reasoning of STEM disciplines. The first phase of the project involved a class of pupils attending the last year of primary school who participated in an educational experimentation activity on learning physics based on an inquiry-based learning approach. The analysis of the data collected, using observational tools, highlighted that the activity has stimulated the flexibility of reasoning; children have built knowledge collaboratively and have shown a high motivational involvement