Extended Abstract: Semiotic mediation and the didactical cycle as a methodological reference for primary science teachers

Primary school teachers have difficulties in teaching sciences and in particular in driving la-boratory activities, addressed to encourage early science thinking, to achieve a lasting effect of science education. Science laboratory activities risk to be reduced to a set of trivial practic-es, or mere manipulation, or twiddling, to be executed by children, without the suitable and precise teacher’s guidance, while, according to the Vygotskian perspective of obucenie (Mecacci,1990), the teacher’s active role is fundamental. In literature or in textbooks, a wide variety of educational school courses is documented, while effective methods on teaching /learning processes are not so widely available. In this contribution, after a synthetic presenta-tion of a proposal of a methodological framework, an example of semiotic approach to intro-duce children to energy meaning construction will be presented and discussed.