Should We Ban Single-Use Plastics? A Role-Playing Game to Argue and Make Decisions in a Grade-8 School Chemistry Class

Abstract

The social dimension of chemistry is relevant and present in numerous socio-scientific issues, for example, the use of plastics. These issues can be covered at school by implementing strategies such as role-playing, which allow different perspectives to be understood, thereby helping to promote changes in attitude. This paper presents a pilot-study about the design and results obtained in the role-playing game “Should we ban single-use plastics?”, which covers the problem of plastics in a secondary school chemistry class by way of argumentation and decision making. Role-playing allows students to represent the viewpoints of different important actors in this area both in favor of a ban on their use (fisherman, environmental scientist, teenager, biodegradable material manufacturer) and against (manufacturer of disposable surgical products, teenager, worker in a plastic cutlery factory, director of an oil company). This role-playing was implemented virtually for a class of grade-8 school students (secondary schoolers in Spain). The main findings include the promotion of learning about the chemical aspects of plastics and the change in attitude of some students regarding this issue after preparing and using arguments and counterarguments based on scientific evidence in a debate. Role-playing is well received by students and helps them to experience positive emotions. Students were found to be very critical of the issue addressed, and the COVID-19 pandemic appeared to affect their decisions.

A Case on a Lesson Plan about Take-out Plastics Use Addressing Confucianism for Sustainability-Oriented Secondary Chemistry Education in Mainland China

“…The design of the role-playing debate was inspired by Lopez-Fernandez et al It consists of an introduction, task, procedure, evaluation, and conclusion with detailed information and guidelines, referring to the learning mode of a WebQuest . The debate topic is for or against the ban on the use of disposable nondegradable plastic take-out food containers”.…”

How Can Socio-scientific Issues Help Develop Critical Thinking in Chemistry Education? A Reflection on the Problem of Plastics

“…It is also of value that students are able to defend a position with which they disagree. The interested reader can find the complete implementation of the role-playing in an article previously published in this Journal …”

“…These changes were from in favor of a ban to against or undecided, but never from against to in favor. After the role-playing, two types of students are against the ban: those initially already holding this position (5.6%) and those who showed a change of opinion after the debate (16.6%) . Arguments related to the use of plastics during the COVID pandemic (when the task was carried out) and the power of the debated ideas to convince both influenced the changes of decision.…”

“…The interested reader can find the complete implementation of the role-playing in an article previously published in this Journal. 26 Students had previously worked in the subject on constructing arguments using a simplification proposed by Erduran 27 for the Toulmin model, 28 in which the main elements of a good argument are claim, evidence, warrant, and rebuttal. The progress made by students in argumentation about chemistry in this task was evaluated using Erduran's approach.…”

“…Task 4 26 required students to make a decision before and after role-playing to determine the impact of the arguments presented by the different characters. The percentage of students in favor of and against the ban during role-playing was compared at both times.…”