O ensino de ciências nos anos iniciais e o livro didático : um olhar sobre as atividades práticas experimentais na perspectiva do ensino por investigação

Abstract

Teaching by investigation can be considered an active methodological approach to teaching where the teacher will encourage students to seek solutions to the proposed problems and not just accept what is imposed on them. In the science subject, the textbook can be an important ally in the construction of knowledge by the student, because in the face of practical experimental activities, and with the mediation of the teacher, students are able to work collectively in search of solutions to the proposed challenges. This is a qualitative, documentary-type research, which aims to analyze the characteristics of experimental practical activities, proposed in science textbooks for the early years of elementary school, in light of the didactic approach to teaching through investigation. For this, the classification of practical activities presented by Campos and Nigro (1999) was used: practical demonstration, illustrative experiment, descriptive experiment and investigative experiment. Regarding the classification of investigative activities, the one presented by Sá, Paula, Lima and Aguiar (2007) was taken into account: presentation of a problem; valuing debate and argumentation; obtaining and evaluating evidence; application and evaluation of scientific theories and possibility of multiple interpretations. Carvalho's (2018) degrees of intellectual freedom were also taken into account, in which the greater the degree of intellectual freedom, the greater the investigative process. Experimental practical activities were analyzed, present in two collections of science textbooks, from the early years of elementary school (PNLD 2019-2022), in which a large number of these activities were detected in textbooks, but a closer look is necessary regarding the orientation of the teacher's mediation in them. It is not enough just for the activity to bring about the construction of a problem, it is necessary to promote the debate, the raising of hypotheses, its testing, the application of scientific theories so that the student can build his knowledge. However, it is not enough for the textbook to present investigative proposals; the teacher must be trained based on the educational vision that it is possible to teach in a scientific way at school.