Inclusive Science Education Through Metaphors and Narrative

The project that will be presented in this chapter concerns the use of metaphors and narrative in science education. The need to support science literacy in an inclusive manner has been affirmed and reiterated in the most recent European programmes for research and innovation (Horizon 2020, Horizon Europe). The “Italian National Guidelines for the curriculum of preschool and first cycle of education” also emphasize the need to support the connection of humanistic and scientific culture and to orient learning towards the acquisition of key competences. In order to achieve these aims, educational practices based on interdisciplinary studies have been designed and improved, especially in STEM education.
In this paper, we present the essential theoretical assumptions and the most important results of the project “Knowing through metaphors”. The project is an exploratory survey designed through interdisciplinary planning aimed at empirically testing the hypothesis that metaphors foster the acquisition of scientific knowledge. The narrative-metaphorical mode, in the context of the exploratory survey, led to the acquisition of more complex, longer-lasting, more evenly distributed knowledge with positive effects for the development of autonomy-oriented skills.