O ciclo didático e as etnociências como proposta de contextualização do ensino de Ciências na Educação Básica

Abstract

The insufficient commitment observed in Brazilian universities to graduate teachers for the Teaching of Science in Elementary Education reflects on a teaching practice unable to fulfill the students’ needs, making learning a simple process of memorization and consequently leading to low levels when evaluated. This research was developed in a traditional community located near the town of Wanderlândia in the State of Tocantins. It was divided into two stages which in one of these steps, it was used the methods established by ethnography and participant survey to obtain data listed in the Community denominated Canto da Areia and another step performed at the community’s Municipal Public School, called Escola Municipal Sagrado Coração de Jesus. By means of participant observation visits were conducted in the community with the intention of knowing their values and customs, here named as Traditional Knowledge, and then, through what we call Didactic Cycle use such knowledge for a contextualized Teaching of Science. The interviews and visits in the community began in 2011 extending to November 2013. The data to be collected were established through categories previously created, not with the intention of preestablishing what is wanted to be investigated but as a guide for actions to be developed in the course of the research and also with the intention that the researcher could guide their search without getting lost in the immensity of phenomena that are revealed in ethnographic research. After collecting the data, the analysis and clusters of the results were made so that the values, beliefs, facts and present phenomena in the community could be revealed. Visits and interviews were held with 43 of the 45 families in the community. A species’ list of plants and animals used in traditional medicine was prepared based on these interviews. The maintenance of this tradition has been verified by an activity performed at school where children mentioned many of these species previously recorded in the community. The communally production of flour, soil management and livestock, local myths and legends were also recorded and analyzed. Then, a series of teaching techniques was aggregated in what was settled as Didactic Cycle. The Didactic Cycle is here understood as a cluster of actions proposed by the teacher, in intention to bring the Ethnosciences of Western Science understanding that thus the contents set by the National Curriculum Parameters may be better understood, assimilated and comprehended by students once they are submitted to a contextualized and close to its reality form. It is worth recalling that all the knowledge acquired in the Community of Canto da Areia and the whole process of Didactic Cycle developed in the school, have peculiar characteristics derived from the site and context they are inserted. Therefore, should be taken as models and inspirations for future work of this nature, since each region, each locality has its peculiarities and is exactly the value of these different realities and wealth that will guarantee the success of the educational process that utilizes this form of action.