A EDUCAÇÃO CIENTÍFICA NOS ANOS INICIAIS DO ENSINO FUNDAMENTAL: OLHARES E REFLEXÕES SOBRE O LETRAMENTO CIENTÍFICO

Abstract

National legislation and specialized literature present Scientific Literacy (LC) as a relevant movement in contemporary scientific education. In this regard, this work aims to analyze whether the LC process of students in the years started in elementary school, based on scientific initiation projects, and to evaluate the conceptions of five teachers, active in the early years of elementary school. The adopted method was the qualitative-exploratory, and the data collection was consolidated through the search for theoretical references and the realization of a semi-structured questionnaire. The data were obtained from the content analysis, according to Bardin (2010). It was possible to verify that the LC has been developed in the early years of elementary school, focused exclusively on scientific initiation projects, originating from themes offered by teachers. It was also concluded that the educators do not express clarity in understanding the breadth of terms that involve scientific research, especially about LC. It is conjectured that this result may be linked to the superficiality of this theme in national and regional curricular documents, or to the plurality of conceptual approaches explored in specialized literature, in which different theorists apply different nomenclatures to classify the processes that permeate scientific education, which can lead to misinterpretations by teachers. Keywords: Science education, Elementary School, Teacher Training, Scientific Literacy.