Digital Comics, a Visual Method for Reinvigorating Romanian Science Education

The Romanian science education reform is targeting a real literacy in science and technology among all graduates of the compulsory education. Writing, talking, and reading about science are desirable goals of scientific literacy, and also ways of achieving it. One the one hand, the current generation of pupils is a digital one, a YouTube Generation or Net Generation, which has grown up in an environment in which it is constantly exposed to digital technology and accustomed to the use of various media, short written texts, pictures and videos, for pleasure and sometimes for learning. On the other hand, hands-on learning activities based on ICT tools aim at increasing pupils' interest in sciences both during formal and non-formal education. In this context, the use of visuals and ICT, in particular, of digital comics, can be a suitable medium/method for science education and communication for this young generation. In this article, we describe and analyze how ICT-based formal and non-formal activities incorporating digital comics and other visuals can facilitate learning and can increase student enthusiasm/motivation for learning science. This article presents and analyzes example activities designed for secondary school pupils by students from the Faculty of Physics, from the West University of Timisoara, which are also enrolled in the pre-service teacher training program offered by this institution. The favorable feedback we have received from the pupils and preservice science teachers alike leads us to assert that such innovative ICT-based teaching methods can lead to a revival of the Romanian science education in general, and of the Romanian physics education in particular, at least as a result of raising pupils' interest in this discipline.