A experimentação no ensino de biologia: matrizes históricas e curriculares na formação de professores

Abstract

The study focus on social and historical aspects in the constitution of ecological contents in Science textbooks. It investigates the curriculum selection and organization processes related to the presence of ecological contents in textbooks. These materials are seen as curriculum guidelines which express Science teaching and educational goals of the historical moments when they were published. The school books are examined in the contexts of Science teaching from decade of 1930 until today. This historical period is subdivided in two parts based on ecological contents of Brazilian textbooks published during de decades of 1960 and 1970. During that period two important educational laws fomented important changes in Brazilian Science teaching. In the first part from 1930 to 1960 the textbooks were analyzed to search Science teaching goals that approached an ecological perspective. In the second part decades from 1970 to 2000 the integration of the ecological approach with other Science teaching goals was examined. The purpose is to understand stability and change patterns which are part of the social and historic evolution of the Sciences as a school subject. The historic process of curriculum invention is presented through the transformations which the subject Sciences went during the decades of 1950, 1960 and 1970. Also, it is investigated the relationship between ecology and other relevant contents of Sciences. It is argued that ecosystem ecology became predominant in textbooks during the period studied because it was seen as an effective approach to strengthen integration as an organizing principle in Science curricula. Besides, school and academic knowledge are viewed as distinct from each other. The comprehension of the selective and productive processes of history of ecological contents in Science textbooks is valued and also the importance of analyses of textbooks contents as curriculum bases and expressions of meanings in those materials.