Chemia bez eksperymentów?
Chemistry without experiments?

Summary/Abstract: In Polish schools experiments are performed only by teachers with passion. Chemistry is no longer seen as an experimental subject. Teachers, who defend the traditional methods of teaching, multiply examples of barriers in conducting experiments in their daily work. The matter has to be reviewed, because the Polish Core Curriculum leaves no doubt that the experiment in chemistry is crucial in the process of education. This article presents results of a study on the frequency of conducting experiments during the chemistry lessons in Polish schools. It also determines the barriers that make it difficult or impossible. The study was conducted in a form of a questionnaire on a group of 60 chemistry teachers from the Pomeranian Voivodeship. The results allow us to conclude that the chemical laboratories in which the surveyed teachers carried on their classes had not been sufficiently equipped, and what is more the students in the classroom hadn’t been performing experiments or had been doing it only occasionally. There were some differences between the frequency of performing experiments during the chemistry lessons depending on the degree of teachers’ professional development status. Slight differences were detected in teachers’ practice between the teachers working in urban and rural areas.

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