Demystifying Science Teachers’ Epistemic Belief on Chemical Concepts: Students’ Engagement in the School Garden

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to transforming chemistry learning from the textbooks in the silent classrooms to the school garden through activity-based learning with students' meaningful engagement in collaboration with the science teachers in the community schools in Nepal. This research also aims to clarifying the epistemological gridlocks (banking concept of education) of school science teachers through measuring pH of garden soil samples by the basic level students' activities. The concern of this study was facilitating school science teachers to impart the practical knowledge of chemical concept (pH of soil) by simple experiments whose backup is based on the epistemologically Vedic education system in Nepal. In-depth interviews and participant observations were taken with the students and teachers about their epistemic beliefs of teaching and learning the basic chemical concepts of chemistry based on the basic level science curriculum. It is found that the science teachers'