Oportunidades para aprender ciencias en el currículo chileno: contenidos y habilidades en educación primaria

This article describes the organization, distribution and frequency of opportunities for learning natural science under the 2012 national curriculum reform in Chile. This curriculum was divided into elements that were coded according to scientific content, cognitive process and scientific skills that are present or absent. The results indicate that half of the scientific content corresponds to the Life Sciences subject matter (51.5%), whereas the specific content of each central theme is heterogeneous is nature and lacking progression criteria. The predominant scientific skills are communicate (27.8%) and observe (15.2%), whereas cognitive skills of low complexity such as understand (49%) and recall (27.6%) are also present. An essential characteristic of curricular reform is consistency of the obligatory curriculum with the proposed goals and demonstration of the organization and progression of content and skills consistent with this purpose.