Page 50 - Climate Conference - EBook 2023: Al-Qasemi Academy

Examples of design-based applications in science education continue to increase. Design
process should be integrated into the science inquiry process. The design process
promoting students' knowledge and abilities offer a learning experience in various
contexts. On the other hand, design should be viewed as a way to comprehend the parts
and functions of a complex system. It is critical to creating related design challenges to
reach these goals. However, there are very few examples discussing how teaching
socio-scientific issues can be supported through design, and earlier studies investigated
primarily focused on creating a single unit (Peel et al., 2019; Puig & Evagorou, 2020). In this
study, we followed a different approach. 21 pre-service teachers taking the
Interdisciplinary Science Teaching course were asked to create different design challenges
and design a design-supported learning environment related to sustainability and climate
change. 21 pre-service teachers created eight different groups and worked on eight
different design challenges (e.g. what are the effects of GMOs on humans? How can we
overcome the water pollution resulting from the disposal of solid wastes? Considering the
benefits and harms of power plants, what should be done to save energy in homes?) for 14
weeks. These challenges led pre-service teachers to create various design products (soap,
cheese, compost material, mining rehabilitation area, animal farming model, game, zoo
model, energy efficient home). Pre-service teachers successfully created design products
but they faced difficulties when creating a learning environment related to these design
challenges.
Keywords: Climate change; Design challenge; Learning environment
References
Peel, A., Zangori, L., Friedrichsen, P., Hayes, E., & Sadler, T. (2019). Students’ model-based
explanations about natural selection and antibiotic resistance through socio-scientific
issues-based learning. International Journal of Science Education, 41(4), 510-532,
Puig, B., & Evagorou, M. (2020). Design of a socioscientific issue unit with the use of
modeling: The case of bees. International Journal of Designs for Learning, 11(1), 98-
7. The Role of Entrepreneurship: Muhammad Abu Al-Nada, an Engineer and General
Manager at the Innovation Center Basecamp in Kafr Qassem, emphasized the critical role
of entrepreneurship in scientific research, facilitating the production of commercially
applicable knowledge and research.
The workshop was attended by various other esteemed researchers in the field of
medicine, including Professor Muhammad Zaidan, Dean of Science at Al-Qasemi
Academy; Professor Abdallah Gharra, former Director of the Volcani Institute; Dr Ziyad
Abdallah, a researcher from the German company Antitoxin; and Dr Nir Shahaf, a
researcher in the Department of Plant Sciences at the Weizmann Institute. During the
workshop, a special tribute was paid to Mr Ahmad Jabareen, the representative of the
Ministry of Regional Cooperation, acknowledging the ministry's significant contributions
to the organization and support of this international conference.
It is important to highlight that workshops like these foster professional networks within
and beyond academic settings, strengthening partnerships and enriching knowledge
development on a global scale. Additionally, all lectures were streamed live on the
Al-Qasemi Academy Facebook page, with instant Arabic translation provided for lectures
delivered in English. The recordings of these lectures can be found on the conference's
webpage for those who missed the live sessions.