Design and implementation of a teaching sequence to introduce the concepts of chemical substance and compound

Abstract

This study proposes the use of a teaching sequence designed to facilitate the learning of the concepts of substance, simple substance and compound in secondary education. It has been elaborated following the historical analysis of the development of these concepts and having also into account the most frequent mistakes committed by students. Its evaluation has been carried out by means of the comparison between the answers given by students who have used it in classroom and other students who have followed the traditional teaching method. The results obtained show that the content selection and sequencing strategies used in a constructivist teaching offers students a major knowledge and capacity of analysis of the studied concepts.