Context based learning: A role for cinema in science education

This paper discusses the role of cinema as a tool for science education.Based on the socio-cultural approach put forward by Vygotsky, it drawsattention to the fact that an audience can interact with the characters and share their emotions and actions showed in an audiovisual setting.Experiences come from an interaction with a learning environment andpersonal construction of knowledge occurs through the interaction between the individual′s knowledge schemes and his or her experiences with the environment. In this way, movies are analysed by considering the potentialof audiovisual, scientific and common languages to be used as a tool to mediating science teaching and learning. Audiovisual language shows itself as a valuable possibility to facilitate knowledge construction. This occurs because of the integration of an individual’s reality with the surroundingenvironment, which develops, in the student, the sensitivity and perception of the setting.