Obstacles épistémologiques liés à l’enseignement de la géologie au cycle secondaire collégial marocain

Abstract. The study of the epistemological obstacles linked to the teaching of geology at Moroccan middle schools has been the subject of numerous studies in science teaching. All the studies show that students come to class with personal conceptions, which, in most cases, constitute obstacles to the acquisition of geological concepts. The present work aims initially to highlight these obstacles in Moroccan students of the third year of middle school in five topics in geology appearing in the official program of Life and Earth Sciences of the school level concerned. The methodology used is based on a questionnaire sent to a sample of 230 pupils and interviews conducted with 30 pupils on the same themes of the questionnaire. The results obtained show that most students present essentially three epistemological obstacles that oppose the acquisition of scientific knowledge in geology: the obstacle of the first experience, the verbal obstacle, and the obstacle of general knowledge. Subsequently, we suggest some solutions to teachers to overcome this problem and deal with these epistemological obstacles related to geology’s teaching.