Concept Maps: Theory, Methodology, Technology Proc. of the Second Int. Conference on Concept Mapping San José, Costa Rica, 2006 CONCEPT MAPS AS TOOLS FOR ASSESSING THE MERGE OF DISCIPLINARY KNOWLEDGE DURING CHEMISTRY CLASSES AT HIGH SCHOOL John W. A. Donner Junior, Maria E. Infante-Malachias, Paulo R. M. Correia, Universidade de São Paulo, Brasil Email: prmc@usp.br, www.grupiec.org Abstract. Concept maps (Cmaps) were used as tools for checking the conceptual changes caused by a didactical activity implemented in a Brazilian high school. Its pedagogical aim was to break down the boundaries, which segregate the scientific knowledge into isolated disciplines. The students were intentionally provoked to merge concepts from Chemistry and Biology, in order to better understand and explain the biological consequences of the isomerism phenomenon. The Cmaps produced by the students before and after the proposed activities confirmed the appearance of relationships among chemical and biological concepts, which were be evaluated from the quantitative and qualitative points of view. Thus, this work concluded the Cmaps can be used to measure the students’ progress toward the interdisciplinarity (ID), and to help the teacher to devise future classroom activities to reinforce and to expand ID relationships. 1 Introduction The recent explosion of the scientific knowledge and the new paradigms of the post-industrial society have imposed new challenges to education (Hobsbawm, 1996; Morin, 2001). The role of scholar education, the revision of pedagogical strategies adopted by teachers, and the formation of conscious and emancipated citizens are hot subjects to respond the new demands posed by the knowledge societies of the 21 st century (Unesco, 2005). The relevance of these educational issues is attested by United Nations, which declared the years between 2005 and 2014 as the ‘Decade of Education for Sustainable Development’ (Pérez et al., 2005). Among all issues brought to this debate, the pursuit of interdisciplinarity (ID) can be highlighted as a key-point to change the classroom dynamics, which is chiefly based on teachers’ expositions. Besides being a teacher-centered activity, the lectures frequently involve disciplinary topics, impairing the students’ perception about the ID nature of the knowledge (Klein, 1996; Weingart & Stehr, 2000). This aspect becomes even more relevant when we analyze how science has been taught at high schools, breaking down the scientific knowledge into isolated disciplines. The imaginary boundaries, which segregate Biology, Chemistry, Geology, and Physics, are emphasized and the students cannot make meaningful associations among their concepts (Donnelly, 2005). Therefore, the students do not perceive the beauty of natural sciences as a whole, and they are not able to make mindful decisions about the complex scientific issues posed to our society (Unesco, 2005). The planning of ID activities and their implementation at the classroom are decisive for encouraging the merge of scientific disciplinary knowledge. The teacher must provoke the students to think beyond these didactical boundaries, to stimulate changes in their cognitive networks toward the establishment of relationships among concepts from different knowledge domains (Galagovsky, 1993). This ID approach can conduct to an improvement of the science education, increasing the meaning of its contents, and stressing the connections between scholar and real-life knowledge. Concept maps (Cmaps) are critical evaluation tools in this context (Novak, 1998), to verify the changes in the students’ cognitive networks after developing the planned ID activities. They can show if the students made up relations between concepts from different scientific disciplines, exploring both quantitative (e.g., how many ID connections were established?) and qualitative (e.g., how deep and correct are the ID connections?) aspects (Wanderse, 1990). Moreover, Cmaps can also help the teacher to devise future classroom activities to reinforce and to expand the established ID relationships. Thus, the goal of this work is to use Cmaps to evaluate the effectiveness of a planned ID intervention, from the assessment of the changes at the students’ cognitive networks. 2 Cmaps for searching ID relationships 2.1 High school, students, and Chemistry classes: a brief description of the local context The present work was developed at a high school located at the São Paulo metropolitan area (Colégio Objetivo, Suzano, SP, Brazil). Thirty students at the 11 th grade were invited to attend 100-min extra-classes once a week (in the afternoon), after their 6 regular classes (in the morning, 50-min each), to learn how to build up Cmaps, and to