Contribuições para o ensino de ciências do sexto ano do ensino fundamental de Mato Grosso do Sul: formação continuada de professores em astronomia incluindo aspectos da etnoastronomia indígena e africana

Abstract

This work is a proposal for a contribution to the teaching of Natural Sciences classes of 6th grade of elementary education in public schools in Campo Grande, Mato Grosso do Sul. My interest in the 6th grade of elementary school has its ground in the fact that in this stage of education the curriculum components are taught by specialists in each area. With this focus, and as a first step of the search, official documents that guide the contents taught in this stage of education were analyzed, such as the National Curriculum Parameters of Natural Sciences and the Curriculum Frameworks, both of the State as well as the County (Campo Grande). After these analysis, a survey data was carried out to ascertain which textbooks were most adopted by state schools, since it is known that the book is still the main instrument for didactic support of teachers; four collections were selected for analysis, three of which accounted for almost 90% of collections adopted by state school units in Campo Grande / MS, and a fourth one as the best evaluated by the MEC committee. Such analyses indicated that the textbooks are not in line with the Curriculum Frameworks in the State of Mato Grosso do Sul (namely: History of the Universe, Solar System, and origin of living beings) as well as the existence of several conceptual errors. Besides, the collections (except for one that did mistakenly) did not show the contributions of African and Indigenous Astronomies as recommended by the laws. Thus, we developed a comic book, aimed at students of the 6th year, in order to presenting the relevant scientific constructions of indigenous and Africans peoples concerning to these contents. Additionally, considering that the teachers who work with science lessons in state schools of Mato Grosso do Sul has their academic background in Biological Sciences (courses that do not include Astronomy in their curriculum matrices), we developed workshops turned to an instructional sequence and a course to these teachers. The course rating took over all activities through notes in the field journal and, subsequently, for monitoring lessons of these teachers in their schools. It can be seen that there was evolution of the concepts previously presented by teachers, although some alternative concepts have not been overcome. It was also observed that, in general, the acceptance of comics by students was very good. Facts relating to the community where the school is located, though they have not been the target of our research, were extremely important in classe performances. Perspectives for future work involving the improvement and preparation of new teaching materials are presented.