Chapter 17
A View on High School Students’
Knowledge About Nanotechnology
Octavian Vasile Caroaie and Ovidiu Florin Caltun
Abstract Nowadays, almost each member of this society, not just high school
students, uses cutting edge technology, whether those devices are used for fun or
work. Technological evolution registered in different fields of knowledge imposes
challenging technological situations for all of them, proposing learning situations
that belong to informal education, which sometimes do not cover the real scientific
facts.
17.1 Introduction
Interacting with freshly gained scientific knowledge could become a big problem,
these interactions suggesting various learning situations, each developing a specific
set of cognitive links based as well on previous interactions with technology. This
informal learning leads to the development of cognitive structures which sometimes
do not cover the real scientific facts, while through formal education students would
be able to form cognitive connections that reflect scientific reality. The main problem
in this situation is that school curriculum does not contain updated information
regarding scientific progress, information that could become the foundation for a
coherent understanding (Stabback 2016). The adaptation of education can be
achieved by changing the structure of contents and skills taught in the classrooms
or transferred in extracurricular activities so that it reflects current society requirements (Darling-Hammond et al. 2019).
O. V. Caroaie · O. F. Caltun (*)
Faculty of Physics, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Iasi, Romania
e-mail: caltun@uaic.ro
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
B. G. Sidharth et al. (eds.), Fundamental Physics and Physics Education Research,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52923-9_17
215
A View on High School Students’
Knowledge About Nanotechnology
Octavian Vasile Caroaie and Ovidiu Florin Caltun
Abstract Nowadays, almost each member of this society, not just high school
students, uses cutting edge technology, whether those devices are used for fun or
work. Technological evolution registered in different fields of knowledge imposes
challenging technological situations for all of them, proposing learning situations
that belong to informal education, which sometimes do not cover the real scientific
facts.
17.1 Introduction
Interacting with freshly gained scientific knowledge could become a big problem,
these interactions suggesting various learning situations, each developing a specific
set of cognitive links based as well on previous interactions with technology. This
informal learning leads to the development of cognitive structures which sometimes
do not cover the real scientific facts, while through formal education students would
be able to form cognitive connections that reflect scientific reality. The main problem
in this situation is that school curriculum does not contain updated information
regarding scientific progress, information that could become the foundation for a
coherent understanding (Stabback 2016). The adaptation of education can be
achieved by changing the structure of contents and skills taught in the classrooms
or transferred in extracurricular activities so that it reflects current society requirements (Darling-Hammond et al. 2019).
O. V. Caroaie · O. F. Caltun (*)
Faculty of Physics, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Iasi, Romania
e-mail: caltun@uaic.ro
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
B. G. Sidharth et al. (eds.), Fundamental Physics and Physics Education Research,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52923-9_17
215