Atividades práticas em livros didáticos de Ciências dos anos finais do ensino fundamental

Abstract

The textbook is often the only material that the teacher and student have as a reference, and therefore has the power to formulate the curriculum. Practical activities, on the other hand, are considered saviors of science teaching, and their use is usually made uncritically. Knowing this, this work aimed to analyze and characterize the practical activities in collections of science books of the final years of elementary school. Six didactic collections were selected from 1999 to 2015. The activities were analyzed and classified according to type, theme, degrees of freedom, if they proposed the formulation of hypotheses, if they had the clear objective and the place of occurrence. In the 23 books chosen, a total of 535 practical activities were analyzed. The quantity in each book varied according to the collection and the serie. The serie with the greatest amount of practice is 9th grade, level where the chemistry and physics subjects are found. In contrast, the 8th year has less practice and the main theme addressed in this serie is the human body, being the biological content with the greatest number of practices. The activities are more numerous at the end of the chapters, functioning as review activities, helping to fix the content. Only six activities have the degree of freedom in the third level, where the student can formulate the methodology of the work. Most were classified on the second level. These practices are relevant because they develop skills and stimulate student’s confidence, preparing for more complex work and execution. But it was expected that there would be a progression in the autonomy given to the students with the increase of the series, which does not occur. Providing the opportunity to develop the activity from scratch gives the student a better understanding of how science is produced. Only 27 practices asked the student to formulate hypotheses. When the student constructs his hypotheses, when he comes in contact with the results, he can contrast his previous conceptions with the data obtained in practice, thus consolidating the learning. Almost 70% of the practices were classified as illustrative, where the student must observe, verify or confirm a theory or phenomenon. One point that became clear is the lack of autonomy of the student in front of the activities, which already come with ready-made scripts, leaving only the student to execute. Knowing how to do is essential, but knowing how to formulate hypotheses and methodologies is important so that the student understands the stages of scientific activities, especially the difficulties, besides showing that science is something that can be done by all, and not only by a select group in society.