Educational Alternatives, Volume 13, 2015

Abstract: Chemistry in the Greek secondary school suffers substantially more than other sciences owing, to the construction of its curriculum. The apparent and necessary interactions with the rest of the sciences and notably with Biology, affect the perception by the students of chemical aspects, mainly atomic structure, bonding and energetic. These interactions do not always promote the interdisciplinary nature of science, a problem mainly caused by the independent construction of the curriculum leading to several hysteron-proteron situations and, furthermore, application of different terminologies and/or interpretation in the two scientific domains. Some simple, cost-free amendments to the Biology textbooks currently used in the Greek high school are proposed in order to provide the necessary back-up for Chemistry and support the interdisciplinary approach in teaching both sciences. The presentation of the case is expected to act as an indication of situations to avoid in constructing or processing analogous curriculum in general.