The Challenge of Contemporary Society on Science Education: The Case of Global Warming

The big problems that contemporary society needs to address (e.g. climate change) challenge our traditional idea of education and require to revise the goals of science education research. Such problems are indeed so complex as to require a wide range of competencies to be engaged in producing and implementing solution strategies. Science education is forced to take into account the many dimensions that characterize contemporary science and to face the task of bringing together the potential of all the different perspectives (Tasquier & Nonni, 2011). An example of this kind of research, concerning environmental problems, will be briefly described and its first encouraging results illustrated.