Human body biominerals: interdisciplinary proposal for the Biology and Geology in High School

Abstract

Competency-based learning have been proved to be an effective learning method characterized by developing and applying specific skills that can then be used to obtain the required knowledge. Thus, the process of teaching and learning should be undertaken by combining active-learning and collaboration to help to retain the knowledge. Therefore, a multidisciplinary vision in which each professional contribute with a specific topic would be necessary. Few topics of the Earth and Life Sciences, taught in Spanish education, show the interrelations between Geology and Biology. On the other hand, Spanish students generally value Biology better than Geology, due to the combination of many factors such as the little presence of Geology in the curricula, the scarce relationship between these two sciences, the extremely theoretical classes or the greater knowledge that students have of job opportunities in the field of Biology. In this paper we revise the curricula of Spanish Bachelors degree (students from 16 to 18 years old) to find issues that can present an interdisciplinary vision related to Crystallography and Mineralogy, in which current learning is non integrated nor motivating as many studies show. We propose some contents that can be included in relation to the human body biominerals (bones, teeth,…), their mineralogical characteristics and their anatomical and physiological functions. The main objectives are to use the good valuation of anatomical topics to introduce lesser-known concepts of Crystallography and Mineralogy, and at the same time to motivate the students to study and value these Geology fields emphasizing their importance in emerging research fields and new work opportunities such as Medical Geology