An innovative teaching approach to circulatory and skeletal systems based on comparative vertebrate anatomy and physiology.

Today teaching Biology in school is still mainly tied to the transmissive method based on behaviorist theories. Consequently, the student is seen as a person who passively absorbs knowledge transmitted through textbooks, to be learned by heart. This makes the subject extremely tedious and tricky to students. It becomes necessary for school to take on a new challenge: to stimulate children with passion, interest, curiosity about the world of science and to strengthen their critical approach to scientific issues. As claimed by authoritative exponents of teaching Biology, this will be possible through a change of methods and teaching practices in the didactic management. Teaching Sciences, and in particular Biology, must be characterized by an active teaching in which students can learn by doing, actively involved in their learning and knowledge building. These considerations resulted in the present teaching research, aimed at testing two experimental hypotheses. The first concerned the validity and effectiveness of a workshop approach (of direct exploration) in the teaching of Biology and, specifically, in the teaching-learning processes of the circulatory and skeletal systems of vertebrates. The second experimental hypothesis concerned, the opportunity to deal with these physiological systems even in a comparative anatomy perspective. The research was conducted in two Primary Schools in the north-east of Italy. In the experimental classes, the circulatory and skeletal systems have been studied comparing heart and bones from different species of animal (such as chicken, dog, pig, rabbit, roe deer, striped dolphin and trout). The project included supplementary activities, differenced for the two systems, stimulating discussions and reflections about certain diseases of the skeletal system and exploring the circulatory system in a physiological perspective. The results highlighted the possibility of proposing, even in the Primary School, laboratory activities in Biology and the possibility to approach the students with complex subjects, like Comparative Physiology and Anatomy. Furthermore, these disciplines helped students to mature a more complete and qualitatively better knowledge about the circulatory and skeletal systems. Moreover, from the analysis of the self-evaluations, it emerged that almost the totality of children appreciated the laboratory activities.