A composteira como recurso para o desenvolvimento de uma rede de conceitos para o ensino de ciências nos anos iniciais

Abstract

Considering the need to discuss Environmental Education in the early years of Elementary School I through practical strategies and through the use of compost artifact as an educational tool, an empirical research was developed within the scope of a professional master’s course, in the state of Paraná, linked to the research line Pedagogical Practices and Teacher Training in Science and Mathematics Teaching, and had as main objective to analyze the potentialities and obstacles arising from the development of a conceptual network in Sciences with students from the third year of the initial years, through the assembly, problematization and the resignification of knowledge through teaching by investigation. The nature of the research is qualitative, based on Bogdan and Biklen (1994), whose empirical development took place in a municipal school in Colombo, Paraná state, during six meetings held in person, with four classes from a municipal public school in Colombo, involving 41 students aged eight years. The first five meetings took place in November and December 2021, while the last meeting was held in May 2022, due to the need for the complete decomposition process of the organic matter deposited in the compost bin, in which the cycle varies from 90 to 120 days. Although the insertion of Environmental Education is present in school curriculum, the results of this research, resulting from the initial Content Analysis proposed by Bardin (1979), suggest the need to invest in the training of students through the use of technical objects, such as the compost bin, as a result of the divergent conceptions presented by the students regarding the destination of organic solid waste and composting as an environmentally suitable alternative for this purpose. The Educational Product generated from this research consists of a Conceptual Network in order to guide educational practices that integrate the Environmental Education approach to Science teaching.