Uma sequência didática para o ensino de evolução humana no ensino médio

Abstract

The biological evolution topic guides the understanding of the interaction of living beings with the environment. The explanatory power of evolutionary theory through the mechanism of natural selection is recognized by the scientific community as well as by the educational community. However, the biological evolution theory gains new configurations in the school context, since, on one hand, the complexity and cognitive and cultural obstacles brought by students are observed, and, on the other hand, the difficulties encountered by the teachers, both with regard to initial training, and respecting the structural conditions of the public school. Considering the complexity and the challenge of implementing spaces in high school which facilitate the meaningful learning of evolutionary theory, this research suggests the construction of an educational product for the study of human evolution, based on Theory of Learning of David Ausubel (1968). Ausubel's theory explains that during the teaching-learning process, new information must anchor and interact with existing concepts in the student's cognitive structure). Thus, the construction of the present didactic sequence was driven by the following guiding questions: Could a potentially significant sequence of activities promote learning about human evolution? What are the meanings attributed to human origin represented in the speeches of first grade students of high school? Is science present in the students‟ discourse? Considering these questions, the objective was to develop a didactic sequence that would aid in the teaching-learning process of concepts that support the idea of human evolution, starting from the analysis of the construction of these concepts. The development of this qualitative research was based on the organization of the didactic sequence, for later application to the first grade high school class of a state public school in the municipality of Várzea Grande-MT and its subsequent evaluation. The didactic sequence presented itself as productive for the treatment of concepts used to approach the theme of human evolution.